Gov. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery

Hammond, James Henry, 1807 - 1864.

Gov. Hammond's letters on southern slavery:

Addressed to Thomas Clarkson, the English

abolitionist. [Charleston, 1845]

GOV. HAMMOND'S LETTERS

ON

SOUTHERN SLAVERY:

ADDRESSED TO THOiMAS CLARKSON,

THE ENGLISH ABOLITIOMST.

No. 1.

Introduction — the. Slave Trade, and futile attempts to abolish it — Prescriptive
Right — Slavery in the Abstract — in its Moral and Religious Aspect — in its Po^
litical Inpiences, as affecting Public Order, and the Safety and Power of the
State.

' Silver Bluff, S. C, Jan. 28, 1845.
Sir : — I received a short time ago, a letter from the Rev. Willoughby M.
Dickinson, dated at your residence, "Playford Hail, near Ipswich, 26th Nov., 1844,"
in which was enclosed a copy of your Circular Letter addressed to professing
Christians in our Northern States, having no concern with Slavery, and to others
there. I presume that Mr. Dickinson's letter was written with your knowledge
and the document enclosed with your consent and approbation. I therefore feel that
there is no impropriety in my addressing my reply directly to yourself, especially as
there is nothing in Mr. Dickinson's communication requiring serious notice. —
Having abundant leisure, it will be a recreation to me to devote a portion of it to
an examination and free discussion of the question of Slavery as it exists in our
Southern States: and since you have thrown down the gauntlet to me, I do not
hesitate to take it up.

Familiar as you have been with the discussions of this subject in all its aspects,
and under all the excitements it has occasioned for sixty years past, I may not be
able to present much that will be new to you. Nor ought I to indulge the hope of
materially affecting the opinions you have so long cherished, and so zealously pro-
mulgated. Still lime and experience have developed facts, constantly furnishing fresh
tests to opinions formed sixty years since, and continually placing this great question
in points of view, which could scarcely occur to the most consummate intellect even
a quarter of a century ago: and which may not have occurred yet to those whose
previous convictions, prejudices and habits of thought have thoroughly and perma-
nently biased them to one fixed way of looking at the matter: While there are pe-
culiarities in the operation of every social system, and special local as well as moral
causes materially affecting it which no one, placed at the distance you are from us,
can fully comprehend or properly appreciate. Besides, it may be possibl}^ a novelty
to you to encounter one who conscientiously Vjelieves the domestic Slavery of these
States to be not only an inexorable necessity for the present, but a moral and hu-
mane institution, productive of the greatest political and social advantages, and who
is disposed as I am, to defend it on these grounds.

I do not propose, however, to defend the African Slave Trade. That is no longer
a question. Doubtless great evils arise from it as it has been, and is now conducted:

2 Gov. Hammonas Letters on Souf/wm Slaveiy.

uiinecesstiry wars and cruel kidnapping in Africa: the most shocking barbarities in
the Middle Passage: and perhaps a less humane system of slavery in countries con-
tinually supplied with fresh laborers at a cheap rate. The evils of it, however, it
may be fairly presumed, are greatly exaggerated. And if I might judge of the truth
of transactions stated as occuring in this trade, by that of those reported as trans-
piring among us, I should nut ln.'sitate to say that a large proportion of the stories in
circulation are unfounded, and most of the remainder highly colored.

On the passage of the Act of i*arliament pr(diii)iting this trade to British subjects
rests what you esteem ihe glory of your life. It re([uired twenty years of arduous
agitation, and the intervening extraordinary political events, to convince your coun-
trymen, and among the rest your pious King, of the expediency of this measure:
and it is but just to say, that no individual rendered more essential service to the cause
than you did. In reflecting on the subject, you must often ask yourself: What
alter all has been accomplished; how much himian sullering has been averted; how
many human beings have been rescued from transatlantic slavery? And on the an-
swers you can give these questions, must in a great measure I presume, depend the
happiness of your life. In framing them, how frequently must you be reminded of
the remark of Mr. Grosvenor, in one of the early debates upon the subject, which
I believe you have yourself recorded, "that he had twenty o])jections to the abolition
of the Slave Tiade: the first was, (hat it vas impossible — the rest he need not
give." Can you say to yourself, or to the world, that thh first objection of Mr.
Grosvenor has been yet confuted? It was estimated at the commencement of your
agitation in 1787, that forty-five thousand Africans were annually transported to
America and the West Indies. And the mortality of the Middle Passage, computed
by some at 5, is now admitted not to have exceeded 9 per cent. Notwithstanding
your Act of Parliament, the previous abolition by the United States, and that all the
powers in the world have subsequently prohibited this trade — some of the graatest
of them declaring it piracy, and covering the African seas with armed vessels to
prevent it — Sir Thomas Fowel Buxton, a coadjutor of yours, declared in 1840, that
the number of Africans now annually sold into slavery l)eyond the sea, amounts, at
the very least, to one hundred and fifty thousand souls; while the mortality of the
Middle Passage has increased, in consequence of the measures taken to suppress
the trade, to 25 or 30 per cent. And of the one hundred and fifty thousnnd slaves
who have been captured and liberated by British men of war since the passage of
your Act. Judge Jay, an American abolitionist, asserts that one hundred thousand, or
two-thirds, have perished between their capture and liberation. Does it not really
seem that Mr. Grosvenor was a prophet? That though nearly all the "impossibili-
ties" of 1787 have vanished, and become as familiar /):/c/.? as our household customs,
under the magic influence of steam, cotton and universal peace, yet this wonderful
prophecy still stands, def\ ing tiiiit; and the energy and genius of mankind. Thou-
sands of valuable lives and fifty millions of pounds sterling have been given away by
your government in fi uitless attemp.s to overturn it. I hope you have not lived too
long for your own happiness, though you have been spared to see that in spite of all
your toil and tho.se of your fellow laborers, and the accomplishment of all that human
agency could do, the African Slave Trade has increa.sed three-fold under your own
?yes — more rapidly, perhaps, than any other ancient branch of commerce — and that
your efforts to suppress it, have effected nothing more than a three-f()ld increase of
its horrors. 'J'here is a God who rules this world — all powerfiil — far-seeing. He
does not permit His creatures to fijil His designs. It is He who, for His allwise,
though to us oflen inscrutable purposes, throws ''imposibilities" in the way of our
fondest hopes and most strenuous exertions. Can you doubt tbis.^

Experience having settled the |)oint, that this Trade cannot be abolished by the
tise of force, and that blockading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable and
more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is persisted in, unless as it serves as a
cloak to some other purposes. It would be far better than it now is, tor the African,
if the trade was free from all restrictions, and left to the mitigation and decay which
time and competition would surely Ijring about. If kidnap[)ing, both secretly and
by war made for the purpose, could bo by any means prevented in Africa, the next

I

^f Gov. Hammond's Letters uii Southern Slavoy. 3

, greatest blessing you could bestow upon that country, would be to transport its ac
V, tual slaves in comfortable vessels across the Atlantic. Though they might be per-
v; petual bondsmen, still they would emerge from darkness into light — from barbarism
^ to civilization — from idolatry to Christianity — in short from death to life.

But let us leave the African slave trade, wliich has so signally defeated the Phi-
lanthropy of the world, and turn to American slavery, to which you have now di-
rected your attention, and against which a crusade has been preached as enthusiastic
and ferocious as that of Peter the Hermit — destined, I believe, to be about as suc-
cessful. And here let me say, there is not avast difference between the two, though
you may not acknowledge it. The wisdom of ages has concurred in the justice and
expediency of establishing rights by prescriptive use, however tortious in their ori-
gin they may have been. Yon would deem a man insane whose keen sense of equi-
ty would lead him to denounce your right to the lands you hold, and which
perhaps you inherited from a long line of ancestry, 1)ecau.se your title was derived
from a Saxon or Norman conqueror, and your lands were originally wrested by
violence from the vanquished Briton^;. And so would the New England Abolitionist
regard any one who would insist that he should restore his farm to the descendants
of the slaughtered Red men, to whom, God has as clearlv given it, as he gave life
and freedom to the kidnapped African. That time does not consecrate wrong, is a
fallacy which all history exposes; and which the best and wisest men of all ages
and professions of religious faith, have practically denied. The means, therefore,
whatever they may have been, by which the African race now in this country, have
been reduced to slavery, cannot affect us, since they are our property, as your land is
yours, by inheritance or purchase and prescriptive right. You will say that man
cannot hold properly in man. The answer is. that he can, and actually does hold
property in his fellow all the world over, in a variety of forms, and has always done
30. I will show presently his authority for doing it.

If you were to ask me whether I was an advocate of slavery in the abstract, I
should probably answer, that I am not, according to my understanding of the question.
I do not like to deal in abstractions; it seldom leads to any useful ends. There are
few universal truths. I do not now remember any single moral truth universally ac-
knowledged. We have no assurance that it is given to our finite understanding to
Comprehend abstract moral truth. Apart from Revelation and the Inspired writings,
what ideas should we have even of God, Salvation and Immortality? Let the Heathen
answer. Justice itself is impalpable as an abstraction, and abstract liberty the mer-
est phantasy that ever amused the imagination. This world was made for man, and
man for the world as it is. Ourselves, our relations with one another, and with all
matter, are real, not ideal. I might say that I am no more in favor of slavery in the
abstract, than I am of povery, disease, deformity, idiocy or any other inequality in
the condition of the human family; that I love perfection, and think I should enjoy a
Milleniutn such as God has promised. But what would it amount to? A pledge that
I would join you to set about eradicating those apparently inevitable evils of our na-
ture, in equalizing the condition of all mankind, consummating the perfection of our
race, and introducing the Millenium? By no means. To effect these things belongs
exclusively to a higher power, and would be well for us to leave the Almighty to
perfect His own works and fulfil His own covenants. Especially, as the history of
all the past shows how entirely futile all human efforts have proved, when made for
the purpose of aiding Him in carrying out even His revealed designs, and how inva-
rially he has accomplished them by unconscious instruments, and in the face of human
expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has been made by fallible man
to extort from the world obedience to his "abstract" notions of right and wrong, has
been invariably attended with calamities, dire and extended, just in proportion to the
breadth and vigor of the movement. On slavery in the abstract then, it would not
be amiss to have as little as possible to say. Let us contemplate it as it is. And
thus contemplating it, the first question we have to ask ourselves is, whether it is con-
trary to the Will of God, as revealed to us in His holy scriptures — the only certain
means given us to ascertain His will. If it is, then slavery is a sin; and I admit at
once that every man is bound to set his face against it, and to emancipate his slaves,
should he hold any.

4 Gov Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery.

Let us open these holy scriptures. In the 20th chapter of Exorlus, 17th verse, I
find the following words: "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor
his ass, nor any tiling that is thy neighbors" — which is the Tentii of those command-
ments which declare the essential principles of the great nxjral law. delivered to
Moses by (Jod himself Now, disregarding all technical and verbal quibbling, as
who![y unworthy to be used in interpreting the Word of God, what is the plain mean-
ing, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this couunandnieni? Does it not emphat
ically and explicitly forbid you to disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment of his pro-
perty; and more especially of that which is here specifically mentioned as being law.
fully and by this commandment made sacredly his/ Prominent in the catalogue
stands his "man servant and his maid servant," who are thus distinctly consecrated as
his property and guarantied to him (or his exclusive benetit in the most solemn man-
ner. You attempt to revert the otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was
thus ordained by God, by declaring that the word "slave" is not used here, and is not
to be found in the Bible. And I have seen many learned dissertations on this point
trom Abolition pens. It is well known that both the Hebrew and Greek words
translated "servant" in the scripture, mean also and most usually "slave." The use
of the one word instead of the other, was a mere matter of taste with the translators
of the Bilile, as it has been with all the commentators and religious writers, the latter
of whom have I believe tor the most part adopted the term "slave," or used both
terms indescriminately. If then, these Hebrew and Greek words include the idea of
both systems of servitude, the conditional and unconditional, they should, as the ma-
jor includes the minor propositions, be always translated "slaves," unless the sense
of the whole text forbiils it. The real question then, is, what idea is intended to be
conveyed by the words used in the commandment quoted? And it is clear to my
mind that as no limitation is affixed to them, and the express intention was to secure
to mankind the peaceful enjoyment of every species of property, that the terms "meu
servants and maid servants" include all classes of servants, and establish a lawful
exclusive and indefeasible interest equally in the "Hebrew brother who shall go out
in the seventh year," and "the yearly hired servant," and "those purchased from the
heathen round about," who were to be "bond-men forever," as the property of their
fellow man. You cannot deny that there were among the Hebrews "Bond-men for-
ever." You cannot deny that God especially authorised his chosen people to pur-
chase "Bond-men forevor" from the Heathen, as recorded in the 2")th chapter of
Leviticus, and that they are there designated by the very Hebrew word used in the
Tenth commandment. Nor can you deny that a "Bond-man for ever" is a "slave;"
yet you endeavor to hang an argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched
subterfuge, that the precise word "slave" is not to be found in the translation of the
Bible; as if the translators were canonical expounders of the Holy Scriptures, and
their words, not God's meaning, must be regarded as His revelation.

It is vain to look to Christ or any of his Apostles to justify such blasphemous per-
versions of the word of God Although slavery in its most revolting form was every
where visible around them, no visionary notions of piety or philanthropy ever tempt-
ed them to gainsay the law, even to mitigate the cruel severity of the existing sys-
tem. On the contrary, regarding slavery as an established as well as inevitable con-
dition of human society, they never hinted at such a thing as its termination on earth,
any more than that "the poor may cease out of the land," which God affirms to Moses
shall never be: and they "exhort all servants under the yoke,'* to "count their mas-
ters as worthy of all honor:" "to obey them in all things according to the flesh; not
with eye-service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God:" "not only
the good and gentle, but also the froward:" '-for what glory is it if when ye are buf-
feted for your I'aults, ye shall take it patiently? but if when ye do well and suffer for
it ye take it patiently, this is acceptable of (iod." St. Paul actually apprehended a
runaway slave and sent him to his master! Instead of deriving from the Gospel any
sanction for the work you have undertaken, it woidd beditficult to imagine sentiments
and conduct more striking in contrast than those of the Apostles and Abolitionists.

It is impossible therefore to suppose that slavery is contrary to the will of God.

Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 5

It is equally absurd to say that American slavery differs in form or principle from
that of the chosen people. We accept the Bible terms as the definition of our slavery,
and its precepts as the guide of our conduct. We desire nothing more. Even the
right to "buffet," which is esteemed so shocUing, finds its express license in the gos-
pel. 1 Pet. ii. 20. Nay, what is more, God directs the Hebrews to "bore holes in
the ears of their brothers" to inark them, when under certain circumstances they be-
come pet'petual slaves: Ex. xxi. 0.

I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I tirmly believe, that American slavery
is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved
by Christ through his apostles. And here I might close its defence; for what God
ordained and Christ sanctifies, should surely command the respect and toleration of
man. But I fear theie has grown up in our time a Transcendental Religion which
is throwing even Transcendental Philosophy into the shade; a religion too pure and
elevated for the Bible; which seeks to erect among men a higher standard of morals
than the Almighty has revealed or our Saviour preached, and which is probably des.
tined to do more t» impede the extension of God's Kingdom on earth than all the
Infidels who have ever lived. Error is error. It is as dangerous to deviate to the right
hand a.sto the left. And when men professing to be holy men, and who are by num-
bers so regarded, declare those things to be sinful which our Creator has expressly
authorized and instituted, they do more to destroy his authority among mankind than
the most wicked can affect by proclaiming that to be innocent which He has forbid-
den. To this self-righteous and self-exalted class belong all the Abolitionists whose
writings I have read. With them it is no end of the argument to prove your propo-
sitions by the test of the Bible, interpreted according to its plain and palpable mean-
ing, and as understood by all mankind for three thousand years before their time.
They are more ingenious in construing and interpolating to accommodate it to their
new-fangled and etherial code of morals, than ever were Voltaire or Hume in picking,
it to pieces to free the world from what they considered a delusion. When the Abo-
litionists proclaim ''man-stealing" to be a sin, and show me that it is so written down
by God, I admit them to be right, and shudder at the idea of such a crime. But when
I show them that to hold "bond-men forever" is ordained by God, they deny the
Bible, and set up in its place a Late of their own making. I must then cease to rea-
son with them on this branch of the question. Our religion differs as widely as our
manners. The (ireat Judge in our day of final account must decide between us.

Turning from the consideration of slave-holding in its relations to man as an ac-
countable being, let us examine it in its influence on his political and social state.
Though, being foreigners to us, you are in no wise entitled to interfere with the
civil institutions of this country; it has become quite common for your countrymen to
decry slavery as an enormous political evil to us, and even to declare that our North-
ern States ought to withdraw from the Confederacy rather than continue to be con-
taminated by it. The American Abolitionists appear to concur fully in these senti-
ments, and a portion at least of them are incessantly threatening to dissolve the
Union. Nor should I be at all surprised if they succeed. It would not be difficult
in mv opinion, to conjecture wiiich region, the North or the South, would suffer most
by such an event. For one, I should not object, by any means, to cast my lot in a
confederacy of States Vvdiose citizens might ail be slave-holders. I indorse without
reserve, the much abused sentiment of Gov. M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner
stone of our republican edifice;" while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much
lauded but no where accredited dogma, of Mr. Jefferson, that '"all men are born
equal." No Society has ever yet existed, and I have already incidentally quoted the
highest authority to show that none ever will exist, without a natural variety of class-
es. The most marked of these must in a country like ours, be the rich and the
poor, the educated and the ignorant. It will scarcely be disputed that the very poor
have less leisure to prepare themselves for the proper discharge of public duties than
the rich; and that the ignorant are wholly unlit lor ihem at all. In all countries save
ours, these two classes, or the poor rather, who are presumed to be necessarily igno-
rant, are by law expressly excluded from all participation in the management of
public affairs. In a repudlican Government this cannot be done. Universal suffrage,

6 God. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery.

though not essential in theory, Reem<* to he in fact, a necessary appendage to a repub-
lican system. WIumc universal suirraf^c ol)tains, it is obvious that the Government
is in the hands of a numerical mijority; and it is hardly necessary to say, that in
every part oftlie world more than half the people are ignorant and poor. Though no
one can look upon poverty as a crime, and we do not generally hero regard it as any
objection to a man in his individual capacity, still it must bo admitted that it is a
wretched and insecure government which is administered by its most ignorant citi-
zens, ami those who have the least at stake under it. Though intelligence and
wealth have great influence here as everywhere, in keeping in check reckless and
unenlightened numbers, yet it is evident to close observers, if not to all, that these are
rapidly usurping all power in the non-slave-holding States, and threaten a fearful
crisis in Republican Institutions there at no remote period. In the slave-holding
States, however, nearly one half of the whole population, and those the poorest and
most ignorant, have no political influence whatever, because they are slaves. Of
the other halt', a large proportion are both educated and independent in their circum-
stances, while those who unfortunately are not so, being still elevated far above the
mass, are higher toned and more deeply interested in preserving a stable and well
ordered government, than the same class in any other country. Hence, slavery is
tnily the "corner stone" and foundation of every well designed and durable "Repub-
lican edifice."

With us. every citizen is concerned in the maintenance ol order, and in promoting
honesty and industry among those of the lowest class who are our slaves; and our
habitual vigilance renders standing armies, whether of soldiers or policemen, entire-
ly unnecessary. Small guards in our cities, and occasional patrols in the country,
ensure us a repose and security known nowhere else. You cannot be ignorant that
excepting the United States, there is no country in the world whose existing Govern-
ment would not be overturned in a month, l)ut for its standing armies, maintained at
an enormous and destructive cost to those whom they are destined to over-awe — so
rampant and combatant is the spirit of discontent wherever nominal Free labor pre-
▼ails, with its extensive privileges and itsdismal servitude. Nor will it be long before
the "Frep .S7a^e,s-" of this Union will be compelled to introduce the same expensive
machinery to preserve order among their "free and equal" citizens. Already has
Philadelphia organized a permanent Battalion for this purpose: New York, Boston
and Cincinnati will soon fijllow her e.\am[)le: and then the smaller towns and dense-
ly populated counties. The intervention of the militia to repress violations of the
peace is becoming a daily affair. A strong Government, after some of the old fashions
— though probably with a new name — sustained by the force of armed mercenaries,
is the ultimate destiny of the nonslave-holding section of this confederacy, and one
which may not be very distant.

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is generally done abroad, that in case of war
slavery would be a source of weakness. It did not weaken Rome, nor Athens, nor
Sparta, though their slaves were comparatively far more numerous than ours, of the
same color for the most part with themselves, and large numbers of them familiar with
the use ofarms. I have no apprehension that our slaves would seize such an oppor-
fimitv to revolt. The present generation, of them born among us, would never think
of such a thing at any time, unless instigated to it by others. Against such instigations
we are on our guard. In time of war we should l)e more watchful and better prepared to
put down insurrections than at any other periods. Should any foreign nation be so lost
to every sentiment of civilized humanity, as to attempt to erect among u •; the standard
of revolt, or to invade us with Black Troops, for the base and barbarous purpose of
stirring up servile war, their efforts would be signally rebuked. Our slaves could not
be easily seduced, nor would any thing delight them more than to assist in stripping
Cuffee of his regimentals to put him in the eotton-field, which would be the fate of
most invaders, without any very prolix form of "apprenticeship." If, as I am satisfied
would be the case, our slaves remained peacefully on our plantations, and cultivated
them in time of war, undc- the superintendance of a limited numlter of our citizens, it
is obvious that we could put forth lucuc strength in such an emergency, at less sacrifice,
than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should in every point of
view, "out of this nettle danger, pluck the flower of safety."

Gov. ffammond's Letters on Soutliern Slavery. 7

How far slavery may he an advantagp or disadvantage to those not owning slave?,
yet united with us in political associations, is a question ^ov their sole consideration.
It is true that our Representation in Congress is increased by it. But so are our
Taxes; and the non-slave-holding States being the majority, divide among themselves
far the greater portion of the amount levied by the Federal Government. And I
doubt not that when it comes to a close calculation, they will not be slow in finding
out that the balance of profit arising from the connection is vastly in their favor.

j\o. 3.

Slavery in its Social Effects — Duelling — Mohs — Repudiation — Licentiousness. Com-
parative Expense of Free and Slave Labor. Treatment of Slaves — Instruction —
Ptmishments.

In a social point of view, the Abolitionists pronounce slavery to be a monstrous
enl. If it was so, it would be our own peculiar concern, and superfluous benevolence
in them to lament over it. Seeing their bitter hostility to us, however, they might leave
us to cope with our own calamities. But they make war upon us out of excess of
charity, and attempt to purify us by covering us with calumny. You have read and
assisted to circulate a great deal about affrays, duels and murders occurring here, and
all attributed to the terrible demoralization of slavery. Not a single event of this
sort takes place among us, but it is caught up by the Aljolitionists and paraded over
the world with endless comments, variations and exaggerations. You should not
take what reaches you as a mere sample, and infer that there is a vast deal more that
you never hear. You hear all, and more than all the truth.

It is true that the point of honor is recognized throughout the slave region, and the
disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for adjustment to the "trial by
combat." It would not be appropriate for me to enter, in this letter, into a defence
of the practice of duelling, nor to maintain at length that it does not tarnish the char-
acter of a people to acknowledge a standard of honor. Whatever evils may arise
from them, however, they cannot he attributed to slavery, since the same notion and
custom prevails both in France and England. Few of your Prime Ministers, of the
last half century even, have escaped the contagion, I believe. The affrays, of which
so much is said, and in which rifles, bowie-knives and pistols are so prominent, oc-
cur mostly in the Frontier States of the South- West. They arc naturally inciden-
tal to the condition of society, as it exists in many sections of these recently settled
countries, and will as naturally cease in due time. Adventurers from the older
States and from Europe, as desperate in character as they are in fijrtune, congre-
gate in these wild regions, jostling one another and often forcing the peaceable
and honest into rencounters in self-defence. Slavery has nothing to do with these
things. Stability and peace is the first desires of every slave-holder, and the true
tendency of the system. It could not possibly exist amid the eternal anarchy and
civil broils of the ancient Spanish dominions in America. And for this very reason,
domestic slavery has ceasecl there. So far from encouraging strife, such scenes of
riot and bloodshed as have within the few years disgraced our Northern cities, and
as you have lately witnessed in Birtningham, and Bristol, and Wales, not only never
have occurred, but I will venture to say never will occur in our slaveholding States.
The only thing that can create a mol) (as you might call it) here, is the appearance
of an Abolitionist whom the people assemble to chastise. And this is no more of a
mob, than a rally of shepherds to chase a wolfout of their pastures, would be one.

But we are swindlers and rejjudiators ! Pennsylvania is not a slave State. A ma-
jority of the States which have liiiledto meet their obligations punctually are non-
slaveholding; and two-thirds the debt said to be repudiated is owed by these States.
Many of the States of this Union are heavily encumbered with debt — none so hope-
lessly as England. Pennsylvania owes $22 for each inhabitant — England, 8222,
counting her paupers in. Nor has there been any repudiation definite and final, of
a lawful debt, that I am aware of. A few States have failed to pay some instal-
ments of interest. The extraordinary financial difflculties which occurred a few

8 Gov. f/dfiimond's Letteis on Southern Slavery.

years ago account for it. Time will set all things right again. Every dollar, of
l>oth principal and interest, owed by any State, North or South, will be ultimately
paid, unless the dboUtion of slaveri/ overwhdm us in one common n/j/j. But have no
other nations failed to pay? When were the French Assignats redeemed? How
much interest did your National Bank pay on its immense circulation from 1797 to
1821, during which period, that circulation was inconvertilile, aw] for the time
repudiated.^ How much of your National Debt has been incurred for money bor-
rowed to meet the interest on it, thus avoiding delinquency in detail, by insuring in-
OTitable bankruptcy and repudiation in the end? And what sort of operation was
that by which your present .Ministry recently expunged a handsome amount of that
debt by substituting, through a process just, not compulsory, one species of security
for another? I am well aware that the taults of others do not excuse our own, but
when failings are charged to slavery, which are shown to occur to equal extent
where it does not exist, surely slavery must be acquited of the accusation.

It is roundly asserted, that wo are not so well educated nor so religious here as
elsewhere. I will not go into tedious satistical statements on these subjects. Nor
have I, to tell the truth, much confidence in the details of what are commonly set
forth as statistics. As to education, you will probably admit that slaveholders should
have more leisure for mental culture than most people. And I believe it is charged
against them that they :irc peculiarly fond of power, and ambitious of honors. If this
be so, as all the power and honors of this country are won mainly by intellectual
superiority, it might be fairly presumed that slaveholders would not be neglectful of
education. In proof of the accuracy of this presumption, I point you to the facts, that
our Presidential chair has been occupied for forty-four out of fifty-six years by slave-
holders; that another has been recently elected to fill it for four more, over an oppo-
nent who was a slaveholder also; and that in the Federal offices and both Houses of
Congress considerally more than a due proportion of those acknowledged to stand
in the first rank are from the South. In this arena the intellects of the free and
slave States meet in full and fair competition. Nature must have been unusually
bountiful to us, or we ''ave been at least reasonably assiduous in the cultivation ot
such gifts as she has bestowed — unless indeed you refer our superiority to moral
qualities, which I am sure j/om will not. More wealthy we are not; nor would mere
wealth avail in such rivalry.

The piety of the South is unobtrusive. We think it proves but little, though it is
a confident thing for a man to claim that he stands higher in the estimation of his
Creator, and is less a sinner than his neighbor. If vociferation is to ca;ry the ques-
tion of religion, the North and probably the Scotch have it. Our sects are few,
harmonious, pretty much united among themselves, and pursue their vocations in hum-
ble peace. In fact our professors of religion seem to think — whether correctly or
not — that it is their duty "to do good in secret," and to carry their holy comforts to the
heart of each individual, without reference to class or ro/or. for his special enjoyment,
and not with a view to exhibit their zeal before the world. So far as numbers are
concerned, I believe our clergymen, when called on to make a showing, have never
had occasion to blush, if comparisons Mere drawn between the free and slave States.
And although our presses do not team with controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits
shake with excommunicating thunders, the daily walk of our religious communicants
furnishes apparently as little foml for gossip as is to be found in most other religions.
It may be regarded as a mark of our want of excitability — though that is a quality ac-
credited to us in an eminentdegree — that few of the remarkable religious Isms of the
present day have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at
.Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such commotions farther North; and
modern Prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Rappists, Dunkers, Social-
ists, Fourrierists and the like keep themselves afar off. Even Pu>eyism has not yet
moved us. You may attribute this to our domestic slavery if you chose. I believe
yon would do so justly. There is no material here for such charncters to operate upon

But vour grand charge is that licentiousness in intercourse between the sexes is a
prominent trait of <uir social system, and that it necessarily arises from .slavery. This
iB a favorite theme with the Abolitionists, male and female. Folios have been writ-

Gofv. Haminond!s Letters on Southern Slavery. 9

ten on it. It is a common observation, that there is no subject of which ladies of
eminent virtue so much delight to dwell, and on which in especial learned old maids,
like Miss Martineau, linger with such an insatiable relish. They expose it in the
Slave States with the most minute observance and endless iteration. Miss Martineau
with peculiar gusto, relates a series of scandalous stories which would have made
Boccacio jealous of her pen, but which are so ridiculously false, as to leave no doubt
that some wicked wag, knowing she would write a book, has furnished her materials
— a game too often played on Tourists in this country. The constant recurrence of
the female Abolitionists to this topic, and their bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail
to suggest to even the most charitable mind, that

"Such rage without, betrays the fires within."

Nor arc their immaculate coadjutors of the other se.x, though perhaps less specific
in their charges, less violent in their denunciations. But recently in your Island a
clergyman has, at a public meeting, stigmatized the whole Slave region as a "Brothel."
Do these people thus ca.st stones being "without sin"? Or do they only

''Compound for sins they are inclined to,

By damning those they have no mind to."

Alas that David and Solomon .should be allowed to repose in peace — that Leo should
be almost canonized, and Luther more than sainted; that in our own day courtezans
should be formally licensed in Paris, and tenements in London rented for years to
women of the town for the benefit of the Church with the knowledge of the Bishop
— and the poor Slave States of America alone pounced upon and offered up as a
holocaust on the Altar of Immaculateness to atone for the abuse of natural instinct
by all mankind; and if not actually consumed, at least exposed, anathemized and
held up to scorn, by those who

"write,
Or with a Rival's or an Eunuch's spite."

But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just or true. VVithout meaning to
proiess uncommon modesty, I will say that I wish thi - to\nc could be avoided.
I am of opinion, and I doubt not every right-minded man will concur, that the public
e.xposure and discussion of this vice, even to rebuke, invariably does more harm than
good; and that if it cannot be checked, by instilling pure and virtuous sentiments, it
is far WDpse than useless to attempt to do it, by exhibiting its defbrmitie.s. I may not,
however, pass it over; nor ought I feel any delicacy in examining a question to
which the Slave-holder is invited and challenged by Clergymen and Virgins. So
far from allowing, then, that licentiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert,
and I refer to the records of the Courts, to the public press, and to the knowledge of
all who have ever lired here, that among our white population, there are fewer cases
of divorce, separation, crim con, seduction, rape and bastardy, than among any other
five millions of people on the civilized earth. And this fact 1 believe will be con-
ceded by the Abolitionists of this country themselves. I am almost willinf to refer
it to them and submit to their decision on it. I would not hesitate to do so if I
thought them capable of an imp?.rtial judgment on any matter where Slavery is in
question. But it is said, that the licentiousness consists in the constant intercourse
between white males and colored females. One of your heavy charges against us
has been that we regard and treat these people as brutes; you now charge us with
habitually taking them to our bosoms. I will not comment on the inconsistency of
these accusations. I will not deny that some intercourse of the sort does take place.
Its character and extent, however, are grossly and atrociously exaggerated. No
authority, divine or human, has yet been found .sufficient to arrest all such irregularities
among men. But it is a known fact, that they are perpetrated here, for the most part
in the cities. Very few inulatoes are reared on our plantations. In the cities a
large proportion of the inhabitants do not own slaves. A still larger proportion are
natives of the North or foreigners. They should share, and justly, too, an equal part
in this sin with the Slave-holders. Facts caimot be ascertained, or I doubt not, it
wouUl appear that they are the chief oflenders. If the truth be otherwise, that per-
sons from abroad have stronger prejudices against the African race than we have.

10 Gov. Hammond^s Letters on Southern Slavery.

Be this as it may, it is well known that this intercourse is regarded in our society as
highly disreputahlo. If carried on habitually, it seriously affects a man's standing,
80 far as it is known; and he who takes a colored mistress — with rare and extraor-
dinary exceptions — loses caste at once. You will say that one exception should damn
our whole country. How much less criminal is it to take a white mistress! In your
eyes it should he at least an equal ollence. Yet look around you at home, from the
cottage to the throne, and count how many mistresses are kept in unblushin'' noto-
riety, without any loss of caste. Such cases are almost unknown here, and down even
to the very lowest walks of life it is almost invariably fatal to a man's position and pros-
pects to keep a mistress o|)enly whether white or black. What Miss Martineau re-
lates of a young man's purchasing a colored concubine from a lady and avowing his
designs, is too absurd even for contradiction. No person would dare to allude to
such a subject in such a manner to any decent female in this country. If he did, he
■would be li/nrhed — doubtless with your approbation.

After all, however, the number ot the mixed breed in proportion to that of the
black is infuiitely small, and out of the towns next to nothing. And when it is con-
sidered that the AtVican race has been among us tor two hundred years, and that
those of the mixed breed continually intermarry — often rearing large families — it is
a decided proof of our continence that so few comparatively are to be found. Our
misfortunes are two-fold. From the prolific propagation of these mongrels among
themselves, we are liable to be charged by tourists with delinquences where none
have been committed, while, where one has been, it cannot be concealed. Color
marks indellibly the offence, and reveals it to every eye. Conceive that, even in
your virtuous and polished country, if every bastard through all the circles of your so-
cial system was thus branded by nature and known to all, what shocking developments
might there not be? How little indignation might your saints have to spare lor the
licentiousness of the slave region. But I have done with this disgusting topic. And I
think I may justly conclude, aller all the scandalous charges which tea-table gossip and
long-gowned hypocrisy have brought against the slave-holders, that a people whose
men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaf-
fectedlv chaste, devoted to domestic life and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor
demoralized, whatever their institutions may l)e. My decided opinion is, that our
system of slavery contiibutes largely to the development and culture of these high and
noble qualities.

In an economical point of view — which I will not omit — Slavery presents some
difficulties. As a general rule, I agree it must be admitted, that free labor is cheaper
than slave labor. It is a taliacy to suppose that ours is unpaid labor. The slave
himself must be paid for, and thus his labor is all purchased ai once, and for no trifling
sum. His |)rice was in the first place paid mostly to your countrymen, and assisted
in building up some of those colossal English fortunes since illustrated by patents of
ivobility, and splendid piles of architecture, stained and cemented, if you like the ex-
pression, with the blood of kidnapped innocents; but loaded with no heavier curse
than Abolition and its begotten fanaticisms have brought upon your land — some of
them fulfilled, some yet to be. But besides the first cost of the slave, he must be fed
and clothed: well ted and well clothed, if not for humanity's sake, that he may do
good work, retain health and life, and rear a family to supply his place. When old
or sick, he is a clear expense, and so is the helpless portion of hi* family. No poor
law provides for him when unable to work, or brings up his children for our service
when we need them. These are all heavy charges on slave labor. Hence, in all
countries where the denseness of the population has reduced it to a matter of perfect
certainty tli .t labor can be obtained whenever wanted, and the laborer be forced by
sheer necessity tf) hire for the small pittance that will keep soul and body together,
and rags upon his back while in actual employment, dependant at all other times on
alms or poor rates; in all such countries it is found cheaper to pay this pittance than
to clothe, feed, nurse, support through childhood, and pension in old age a race of
slaves. Indeed, the advantage is so great as speedily to compensate lor the loss of
the value of the slave. And I have no hesitation in saying, that if I could cultivate
my lands on these terms, I would without a word resign my slaves, provided they

Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 11

could be properly disposed of. But the question is, whether free or slave labor is
cheapest to us iti this country at this lime, situated as we are. And it is decided at
once by the fact, that we cannot avail ourselves of any other than slave labor. We
neither have nor can we procure other labor to any extent, or on any thing like the
terms mentioned. We must therefore content ourselves with our dear labor, under
the consoling reflection that what is lost to us, is gain to humanity; and that inas-
much as our .slave costs us more than your free man costs you, by so much is ho
better ofT You will promptly say, emancipate your slaves, and then you will have
free labor on suitable terms. That might be, if there were five hundred where
there is now one, and the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was as densely
populated as your Island. But until that comes to pass, no labor can be procured in
America on the terms you have it.

While I thus freely admit that to the individual proprietor slave labor is dearer
than free, I do not mean to admit it as equally clear that it, is dearer to the communi-
ty and to the State. Though it is certain that the slave is a far greater consumer
than your laborer, the year round, yet your pauper system is costly and wasteful.
Supported by j'our community at large, it is not administered by your hired agents
with that interested care and economy — not to speak of humanity — whicii mark the
management of ours by each proprietor for his non-efTectivws. and is both more ex-
pensive to those who pay, and less beneficial to those who receive its bounties. Be-
sides this. Slavery is rapidly filling up our country with a hardy and healthy race,
peculiarly adapted to our climate and productions, and conferring signal political and
social advantages on us as a people, to which I have already referred.

I have yet to reply to the main ground on which you and your coadjutors rely for
the overthrow of our system of slavery. Failing in all your attempts to prove that it
is sinful in its nature, immoral in its effects, a political evil, and profitless to those
who maintain it, you appeal to the sympathies of mankind, and attempt to arouse the
world against us by the most shocking charges of tyranny and cruelty. You begin
by a vehement denunciation of "the irresponsible power of ono man over his fellow-
men." The question of the responsibility of power is a vast one. If i.'^ the great
political question of modern times. Whole nations divide off upon it and establish
ditrurent fundamental systems of government. That "responsibility," which to one
set of millions seems amply sufficient to check the government, to the support of
which they devote their lives and fmtunes, appears to another set of millions a mere
mockery of restraint. And accordingly as the opinions of these millions differ, they
honor each other with the epithets of "Serfs'" or "Anarchists." It is ridiculous to
introduce such an idea as this into the discussion of a mere Domestic Institution.
But since you have introduced it, I deny that the power of the slaveholder in America
is "irresponsible." lie is responsible to God. He is responsible to the world — a
responsibility which Abolitionists do not intend to allow him to evade — and in acknow-
ledgment of which I write you this letter, lie is responsible to the community in
which he lives, and to the laws under which he enjoys his civil rights. Those laws
do not permit him to kil, to maim, or to punish beyond certain limits, or to overtask
or to refuse to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid him to be tyrannical
or cruel. If any of these laws have grown obselete, it is because they are so seldom
violated that then' are forgotten. You have disinterred one of them from a compila-
tion by some Judge Stroud, of Pliilapelphia, to sligm?.lize its inadequate penalties tor
killing, maiming, &c. Your objects appears to be — you can have no other — to pro-
duce ilu; impression that it must be often violated on account of its insufficiency. You
say as much, and that it marks our estimate of the slave. You forget to state that this
law was enacted by Englishmen, and only indicates their opinion of the reparation
due for these offences. Ours is proved by the fact, though perhaps unknown to .ludge
Striud or yourself, that we have essentially alt(n*ed this law; and the murder of a
slave lias for many years b(!(^n punishable with death in this State. And so it is, I
belicv(j, in most or all tlu; siavu States. You seem well aware, however, that laws
have been recently passed in all these States making it penal to tench slaves to read.
Do you know what occasioned their passage, and renders their stringent enforcement
necessary. I can toll you: it was the abolition agitation. If the slave is not allowed

12 God. Hammond! s Letters on Southern Slaveiy.

to read his Bible, the sin rests upon the Abolitionists; for ihey stand prepared to fur-
nisli him with u key to it, which would make it, not a book of hope and love and peace,
but of desj>air, hatred and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Chris-
tian, but a Demon. To preserve him from such a horrid destiny, it is a sacred duty
which we owe to slaves, not less than to ourselves, to interpose the most decisive
means. If the Catholics deem \x wrong to trust the Bible to the hands of ignorance,
shall wc be excommunicated because we will not give and with it the corrupt and fa-
tal commentaries of the Abolitionists, to our slaves? Allow our slaves to read your
pnn)phlets, stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such un-
speakable fools.

I do not know that I can subscribe in full to the sentiment so often quoted by the
Abolitionists, and by Mr. Dickenson in his letter to me: ^^Homo sum et nihil human-
um a me alieniim puto," as translated and practically illustrated by them. Such a
doctrine would give wide authority to everyone for the most dangerous intermeddling
wiih the allairs of others. It will do in poetry — perhaps in some sort of philosophy;
but the attempt to make it a household maxim, and introduce it into the daily walks
of life, has caused many an "Homo" a broken crown; and probably will continue to
do it. Still though a slaveholder, I freely acknowledge my obligations as a man;
and that I am bound to treat humanely the fellow creatures whom God has trusted to
my charge. I feel therefore somewhat sensitive under the accusation of cruelty, and
dis()0sed to defend myself and fellow slaveholders against it. It is certainly the in-
terest of all, and I am convinced that it is also the desire of every one of us, to treat our
slaves with proper kindness. It is necessary to our deriving the greatest amount of
profit from them. Of this we are all satisfied. And you snatch from us the only
consolation we Americans could derive from the approbi ions imputation of being
wholly devoted to making money, which your disinterested and gold-despising coun-
trymen delight to cast upon us, when you nevertheless declare, that we arc ready to
sacrifice it for the pleasure of being inhuman. You remember that Mr. Pitt, could
never get over the idea that self-interest would insure kind treatment to slaves, until
vou told him your woful stories of the Middle Passage. Mr. Pitt was right in the
first instance, and erred, under your tuition, in not perceiving the difference between
a temporary and permanent ownership of them. Slave-holders are no more perfect
than other men. They havt passions. Some of them as you may suppose, do not
at all times restrain them. Neither do husbands, parents and friends. And in each
of thetje relations, as serious sulFeringsas frequently arise from uncontrolled passions
as ever does in that of master and slave, and with as little chance of indemnity. Yet
you would not on that account break them up. I have no hesitation in saying that
out slave holders are as kind masters, as men usually are kind husbands, parents and
friends — as a general rule, kinder. A bad master — he who overworks his slaves,
provides illy for them, or treats them with undue severity — loses the esteem and res-
pect of his fellow citizens to as great an extent, as he would for the violation of any
of his social and most of his moral obligations. What the most perfect plan of
management would be is a problem hard to solve. From the commencement of sla-
very in this country, this subject has occupied the minds of all slave-holders, as
much as the improvement of the general condition of mankind has those of the most
ardent Philanthropists; and the greatest progressive amelioration of the system has
been efl'ected. You yourself acknowledge that in the early part of your career you
were exceedingly anxious for the immediate abolition of the slave trade, last thost;
engaged in it siioulJ so mitigate its evils as to destroy the force of your arguments
and I'acts. The improvement you then dreaded has gone on steadily here, and
would doubtless have taken place in the slave trade but lor the measures adopted to
suppress it

Of late vcars we have been not oidy annoyed, but generally greatly embrirrassed
in this matter, by the abolitionists. We have been compelled to curtail some privi-
leges; we have bemi debarred from granting new ones. In the face of discussion,
which aim at loosening all ties between master and slave, we have in some measure
to abandon our efforts to attach ihom to us and control them through their affections
and pride. We havu to rely more and more on the power of fear. We must in all

Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 13

our Intercourse with them assert and maintain strict mastery, and impress it on them
that they are slaves. This is painfu) to us, and certainly no present cdvantage to
them. But it is the direct consequence of the aholiliun agitation. We arc determined
to continue masters, and to do so we have to draw the rein tighter and tighter day by
day, to be assmed tliat we keep them in complete clieck. How far this process
will go on depends wholly and solely on the abolitionists. When they desist we can
relax. We may not before. I do not mean by all this, to say that we are in a state
of actual alaru) and fear of our slaves; but under existing circumstances, we should
be ineffably stupid not to increase our vigilance and strengthen our hands. You see
some of the fruits of your labors. 1 speak freely and candidly — not as a colonist,
who, though a slave-holder has a master; but as a free white man, hulding under
God, and resolved to hold, my fate in my own hands; and I assure you ihal my sen-
timents and feelings and determinations are those of every slave-holder in this country.
The research and ingenuity of the Abolitionists, aided by t!'e invention of runaway
slaves — in which faculty, so far as improvising falsehood goes, tiie African race is
without a rival — have succeeded in shocking the world with a small number of pre-
tended instances of our barbarity. The only wonder is that, considering the extent
of our country, the variety of our population, its fluctuating character, and the publi-
city of all our transactions, the number of cases collected i.s so small. It soeaks well
for us. Yet of these, many are ialse, all highly colored, some occurring half a cen-
tury, most of them many years ago; and no doubt a large proportion of them perpe-
trated by foreigners. With a few rare exceptions the emigrant Scotch and English
are the worst masters among us, and next to them our Northern fellow citizens.
Slave-holders born and bred here, are always more humane to Slaves, and those who
have grown up to a large inheritance of them, the most eo of any — showing clearly
that the effect of the system, is to foster kindly feelings. I do not mean so much to
impute innate inhumanity to foreigners, as to show that they come here with false
notions of the treatment usual and necessary for slaves, and that newly acquired
power here, as every where else, is apt to be abused. I cannot enter into a detailed
examination of the cases stated by the Abolitionists. It would be disgusting and of
little avail. I know nothing of them. I have seen nothing like them, though born
and bred hero, and have rarely heard of any thing at all to be compared with them.
Permit me to say that I think most of j/owr facts must have been drawn from the
West Indies, where undoubtedly slaves were treated much more harshly than with
usl This was owing to a variety of causes, which might, if necessary be stated.
One was that they had at first to deal more extensively with barbarians fresh from
the wilds of Africa; another, and a leading one, the absenteeism of Proprietors. Agents
are always more unfeeling than owners, whether placed over West Indian, or Ame-
rican Slaves, or Irish Tenantry. We feel this evil greatly, even here. You des-
cribe the use of ihicmb screws as one mode of punishment among us. I doubt if a
thumb screw can bo found in America. I never saw or heard of one in this country.
Stocks are rarely used by private individuals, and confinement still more seldom,
though both are common punishments for whites all the world over. I think they
should be more frequently resorted to with slaves, as substitutes for flogging, which I
consider the most injurious and least efficacious mode of punishing them for serious
offences. It is not degrading, and unless excessive, occasions little pain. You may
bo a little astonished, after all the flourishes that have been made about "cart whips,"
&c., when I say flogging is not the most degrading punishment in the world. It may
be so to a white man in most countries, but how is it to the white boy? That ne-
cessary coadjutorof the school-master, the "birch,"' is never thought to have rendered
infamous the unfortunate victim of pedagogue ire; nor did Solomon in his wisdom
dream that he was counst-ling parents to debase their offspring, when he exhorted
them not to spoil the child by sparing the rod. Pardon me for referring to the now
exploded ethics of the Bible. Custom, which, you will perhaps agree, makes most
things in this world good or evil, has removed all infamy, from the punishment of the
lash to the slave. Your blood boils at the reciial of stripes inflicted on a man; and
you think you should be frenzied to see your own child flogged. Yet see how com-
pletely this is ideal, arising from the fashions of society. You doubtless submitted to

14 G(n\ Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery.

the rod yourself, in oilier years, when tlie smart was peiliaps as severe as it would
be now; and you have never been guilty of the folly of revenging yourself on the
Preceptor, who in the plenitude of his "irresponsible power" thought proper to elms-
lise your son. So it is with the negro, and the negro father.

As to chains and irons, they are rarely used; never 1 believe, except in cases of
running away. You must admit tliat if we pretend to own slaves, they must not be
permitted to abscond whenever they see fit; and thai if nothing else will prevent it
these means must be resorted to. Sec tlie iniiunianity necessarily arising from sla-
very, you will exclaim! Are such restraints imposed on no other class of people,
giving no more olFence? Look to your army and navv. If your seamen, impressed
from their peaceful occupations, and your soldiers, recruited at the gin siiops — belli
of them as much kidnapped as the most unsuspecting vic»im of the Slave Trade, and
doomed to a far more wretched fate — if these men manifest a propensity to desert,
the heaviest manacles are their mildest punishment. It is most commonly death,
after summary trial. But armies and navies you say are indispensable, and must be
kept up at every sacrifice. I answer that they are no more indispensable than slavery
is to us — and to you; for you have enough of it in your own country, though the form
and name differ from ours. Depend upon it that many things, and in regard to our
slaves, most things which appear revolting at a distance, and to slight reflection,
would on a nearer view and impartial comparison with the customs and conduct with
the rest of mankind, strike you in a very ditlerent light. Remember that on our
estates we dispense with the whole machinery of public police and public Courts of J
Justice. Thus we try, decide and execute the sentences, in thousands of cases, ,
which in other countries would go into the Courts. Hence most of the acts of our i
alleged cruelty, which have any foundation in truth. Whether our Patriarchal mode
of administering justice is less humane than the Assizes can only be determined by
careful inquiry and comparison. But this is never done by the Abolitionists. All
our punishments are the outrages of "irresponsible power." If a man steals a pig in •
England ho is transported — torn from wife, children, parents, and sent to the Anti-
podes, infamous, and an outcast forever, though perhaps betook from the superabun-
dance of his neighbor to save the lives of liis famishing little ones. If one of our well '
fed negroes, merely for the sake of fresh meat, steals a pig, he gets perhaps forty
stripes. If one of your Cottagers breaks into another's house, he is hung for burglary.
If a slave does the same here, a few lashes, or perhaps a few hours in the stocks,
settles the matter. Are our Courts or yours the most humane? If slavery were not
in question, you woidd doubtless say ours is mistaken lenity. Perhaps it often is;
and slaves too lightly dealt with sometimes grow daring. CJccasionally, though rare-
ly, and almost always in consequence of excessive indulgence, an individual rebels.
This is the highest crime he can commit. It is treason. It strikes at the root of
our whole system. His life is justly forfeited, though it is never intentionally taken,
unless after trial in our public courts. Sometimes, however, in capturing, or in self-
defence, he is unfortunately killed. A legal investigation always follows. But, ter-
minate as it may, the Abolitionists raise a hue and cry, and another "shocking case"
is held up to tlie indignation of the world by tender hearted male and female Philan-
thropists, who would have thought all right had the master's throat been cut, and
would have triumphed in it.

No, 3.

Physical and Mural Contlltion of Southern Slaces compared with English Labor'
ers. Schemes of Abolition — '•'■Moral Suasion'" — Force — Competition of Free
Labor. The Grand Upshot of West Lidia Emancipation.

Perhaps u few general facts will best illustrate the treatment this race receives at
our hands. It is acknowledged thai it is increased at least as rapidly as the white.
I believed it is an established principle, that population thrives in proportion to its
comforts. But when it is considered, that these people are not recruited by immi-
gration from abroad as the whites are, and that they are usually settled to our rich»

Gov. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery. 15

est and least healthy lands, the fact of their equal comparative increase and greater
longevity, outweighs a thousand abolition falsehoods, in favor of the leniency and
providence of our management of them. It is also admitted that there are incom-
parably fewer cases of insnnity and suicide among them than among the whites.
The fact is, that among the slaves of the African race, these things are almost wholly
unknown. However frequently suicide may have been among those brought from
Africa, I can say that in my time, I cannot remember to have known or heard of a
single instance of deliberate self-destruction, and but one of suicide at ail. As to
insanity, I have seen but one permanent case of it, and that twenty years ago. It
cannot be doubted that among three millions of people there must be some insane and
some suicides; but I will venture to say, that more cases of both occur annually
among every hundred thousand of the population of Great Britain, than among all
our slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that state of abject misery,
goaded by constant injuries, outraged in their affections and worn down with hard-
ships, which the abolitionists depict, and so many ignorant and thoughtless persons ro-
ligiously believe?

With regard to the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children, no-
thing can be more untrue than the inferences drawn from what is so constantly
harped on by abolitionists. S(jme painful instances perhaps may occur: very few that
can be prevented. It is and always has been an object of prime consideration with
our slave-holders to keep families together. Negroes are themselves, both per-
verse and comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a singular trait, that
they almost invariably prefer forming connexions with slaves belonging to other mas-
ters, and at some distance. It is therefore impossible to prevent separations some-
times, by the removal of one owner, his death, or failure, and dispersion of his pro«
perly. In ail such cases, however, every reasonable effort is made to keep the par-
ties together, if they desire it. And the negroes forming these connexions, know,
ing the chances of their premature dissolution, rarely complain more than we all du
of the inevitable strokes of fate. Sometimes it happens that a I'.egro prefers to give
up his fomily ra her than separate from his master. I have known such instances-
As to wilfully selling off a husband, or a wife, or child, I believe it is rarely, very
rarely done, except when some offence has been committed demanding "transporta-
tion." At sales of estates, and even at Sheriff's sales, they are always, if possible,
sold in fomilies. On the whole, notwithstanding the migratory character of our pop-
ulation, I believe there are more families among our slaves, who have lived and died
together, without loosing a single member from their circle, except by the process of
nature, and in the enjoyment of constant, uninterrupted communion, than have flour-
ished in the same space of time and among the same number of civilized people in
modern times. And to sum up all, if pleasure is correctly defined to be the absence
of pain — which so far as the great body of mankind is concerned, is undoubtedly its
true definition — I believe our slaves are the happiest three millions of human being3
on whom the sun shines. Into their Eden is coming Satan in the guise of an Aboli-
tionist.

As regards their religious condition, it is well known that a majority of the commu-
nicants of Methodist and Baptist Churches of the South are colored. Almost every-
where they have precisely the same opportunities of attending worship that the whites
have, and besides, special occasions for themselves exclusively, which they prefer. la
many places not so accessible to clergymen in ordinary, Missionaries are sent, and
mainly supported by their masters, for the particular benefit of the slaves. There are
none I imagine who may not if they like, hear the gospel preached at least once a monthj
most of them twice a month, and very many every week. In our thinly settled coun-
try the whiles fare no better. But in addition to this, on the plantations of any size
the slaves who have joined the church are formed into a class, at the head of which
is placed one of their number, acting as deacon or leader, who is also sometimes a
licensed preacher. This class assembles for religious exercises weekly, semi-week-
ly, or oftener, if the members choose. In some parts also Sunday schools for blacks
are established, and Bible classes are orally instructed by discreet and pious persons.
Now where will you find a laboring population possessed of greater religious advanU.

16 Gov. Hainino)ids Letters on SoiUliern Slavery.

ges iliaii these? Not in London, I am sure, where it is known that your Churches,
Chapels and Religious Meeting Houses, of all sorts, cannot contain one half of the in-
liabitants.

I have admitted without hesitation, what it would be untrue and profitle^js to deny,
that Slave-holders are responsible to the world for the humane treatment of the fellow-
beings whom Gud placed in tlieir hands. 1 think it would be only fair for you to ad-
mit, what is equally undeniable, that every man in independent circumstances, all the
world over, and every government, is to the same extent responsible to the whole hu-
man t'amily, for the condition of the poor and laboring classes in their own country and
mound them, wherever ihhy may be placed, to whom God has denied the advantages
he has given themselves. If so, it would naturally seem the duty of true humanity
and rational philanthropy to devote their time and labor, their thoughts, writings and
charity, first to the objects placed as it were under their own immediate charge. And
it must be regarded as a clear evasion and sinful neglect of this cardinal duty, to pass
from those whose destitute situation ihey can plainly see, minutely examine and effi-
ciently relieve, to enquire after the condition of others in no way entrusted to their
care, to exaggerate evils of which they cannot be cognizant, to expend all their sym-
pathies and exhaust all their energies on these remote objects of their unnatural, not
to say dangerous, benevolence; and finally, to calumniate, denounce and endeavor to
excite the indignation of the world against their unoflending fellow creatures for not
hastening under their dictation to redress wrongs which are stoutly and truthfully de-
nied, while they themselves go but little farther in alleviating those chargeable on
them, than openly and unblushingly to acknowledge them. There may be indeed a
sort of merit in doing so much as to make such an acknowledgement, but it must be
very modest if it expects appreciation.

Now I affirm, that in Great Britain the poor and laboring classes of your own race
and color, not only your fidlow beings, but your fellow citizens, are more miserable
and degraded, morally and physicaily, than our slaves; to be elevated to the actual
condition of whom, would be to ihvsc your fellow citizens a most glorious act ol' eman-
cipation. And I also affirm, that the poor and laboring classes of our older Free
iSiates would not be in a much more enviable condition but for our slavery. One of
their own Senators has declared in the United States Senate, "that the repeal of the
Tariff would reduce New England to a howling wilderness-" And the American
Tariff is nei*her more nor less than a system by which the Slave States are plundered
for the benefit of those Sta'es which do not tolerate Slavery.

To prove what I say of Great Britain to be true, I make the following extracts from
the Reports of Commissioners ai)pointed by Parliament, and published by the order
of the House of Commons. I can make but few and short ones. But similar quota-
tions might be made to any extent, and I defy you to deny that these specimens do not
exhibit the I'eal condition of your operatives inevery branch of your industry. There is a
course of variety in their sufferings. But the same incredible amount of toil, fright-
ful destitution, and utter want of morals, characterise the lot of every class of them.

Collieries. ''I wish to call the attention of the Board to the pits about Brampton.
The seams are so thin that several of them have only two feet head-way to all the work-
in<r. Thev are worked altogfither by boys from 8 to 12 years of age, on all-fours,
with a dog-belt and chain. The |)assage& beikg neither ironed nor wooded, and often
uii inch or two thick with mud. In Mr. Barns' pit, these poor boys have to drag the
barrows with one cwt. of coal or slack GO times a day 60 yards, and the empty bar-
rows back, without once straightening their backs unless they choose to stand under
the shaft and run the risk of having tlieir heads broken by a falling coal." — Rep. on
Mines., 1842. p. 71. "In Stropshire the seams are no more than 18 or 20 inches."
Ibid. p. G7. "At the Booth pit," says Mr. Scriven, "I walked, rode and crept 1800
yards to one of the nearest faces." — Ibid. "Chokedamp," "Firedam,"" Wild fire,"
"Sulphur" ami "Water" at all times menaced instant death to the laborers in these
mines." Robert Northy aged 16: Went into the pit at 7 years of age, to fill up skips.
I drew about 12 months. When I drew by the girdle and chain my skin was broken,
and the blood ran down. I durst not say anything. If we said anything, the butty,
and the revee who works under him, would tako a stick and beat us." — Ibid. "The

Gov, Hammond's LcUcrs on Southern Slavery. 17

usual punishment for iheft, is to place the culprit's head between the legs of one of
the biggest boys, and each boy in the pit — sometimes there are 20 — inflicts 12 lashes
on the back and rump with a cat." — Ibid. "Instances occur in which children arc
taken into these mines to work as early as 4 years of age, sometimes at 5, not unfrc-
quently at 6 and 7, while from 8 to 9, is the ordinary age at which these employments
connnence." — Ibid. The wages paid at those Mines is from 'S2 50 to $7 50 per
month for laborers accor. ing to age and ability, and out of this they must support
themselves. They work 12 hours a day. — Ibid.

In Calico Printing. It is by no means uncommon in all the districts for children
5 or 6 years old to be kept 14 to 16 hours consecutively.'" Rep. on Children, 1842,
p. 59.

I coLdd furnish extracts similar to these in regard to every branch of your manu-
factures, but I will not multiply them. Every body knows that your operatives habit-
ually labor from 12 to 16 hours, men, women and children, and the men occasionally
20 hours per day. In lace making, says the last quoted Report, children sometimes
comnience work at 2 years, of age.

Destitution. It is stated by your Commissioners, that 40,000 persons in Liverpool,
and 15,000 in Manckester, live in cellers; while 22,000 in England pass the night
in barns, tents, or the open air. "There have been found such occurrences as 7, 8
and 10 persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day, but for whole days, without
a morsel of food. They have remained in their beds of straw for two successive days,
under the impression that in a recumbent posture the pangs of hunger were less felt."
Lord Brougham^ s Speech, July 11, 1842. A volume of frightful scenes might be
quoted to corroborate the inferences to be necessarily drawn from the facts here sta-
ted. I will not add more, but pass on to the important inquiry, as to

Morals and Education. — Elizabeth Barrett, aged 14. I always work without stock-
ings, shoes or trowsers. I wear nothing but a shift. I have to go up to the headings
with the men. They are all naked there. I am got used to that." Report on Mines.
"As to illicit sexual intercourse, it seems to prevail universally and from an early
period of life." "The evidence might have been doubted which attest the early com-
mencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among boys and girls." A lower
condition of morals in the fullest sense of the term, could not I think be found. I do
not mean by this that there are many more prominent vices among them, but that
moral feelings and sentiments do not exist. They have no morals.''' "Their appear-
ance, manners and moral natures — so far as the word moral can be applied to them,
are in accordance with their half civilized condition." — Rep. on Children. "More
than half a dozen instances occurred in Manchester, where a man, his wife, and his
wife's grown up sister, habitually occupied the same bed. — Report on Sanitary Condi-
tion. Robert Churchillow , aged 16: "1 do not know anything ol Moses — never heard
ofFrauce. I dont know what America is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland.
Cant tell how many weeks there are in a year. There 12 pence in a shilling, and
20 shillings in a pound. There are eight pints in a gallon of ale." — Rep. on Mines.
Ann Eggly aged 18. "I walk about and get fresh air on Sundays. I never go to
Church or Chapel. I never heard of Christ. at all." Ibid. Others: "The Lord sent
Adam and Eve on earth to save sinners." "I dont know who made the world, I
never heard about God." I dont know Jesus Christ — I never saw him — but I have
seen Foster who prays about him." Employer: "You have expressed surprise at
Thomas Mitcliel's not hearing of God. 1 judge there are few Colliers here about
that have." Ibid. I will quote no more. It is shocking beyond endurance to turn
over your Records in which the condition of your laboring classes is but too faithfully
depicted. Could our slaves but see it, they would join us in Lynching Abolitionists,
which, by the by, they would not now be loth to do. We never think of iniposing on
them such labor, either in amount or kind. We never put them to a7iy work under
ten, more generally at twelve years of age, and then the very slightest. Destitution
is absolutely unknown; never did a slave starve in America; while in moral senti-
ments and feelings, in religious information, and even in creneral intelligence they
are infinitely the superiors of your operatives. When you look around you how dare
you talk to us before the world of slavery? For the condition of your wretched labo-

18 Gov. Hammond^s Letters on Southern Slavery.

rers, you, and every Britain wlio is not one of them, arc responsible before God and
man. If you are really buiiKine, plii!aiillirii|>ic and charitable, here are obji-cts for
you. Relieve them. Kinaneipate then). Raise them from the condition of brutes,
lo the level of liunian beings; of American slaves at least. Do not for an instant
snppose, that the name of being freemen is the slightest comfort to them, situated as
tlioy arc, or that the bombastic boast that "whoever touches British soil stands re-
deemed, regenerated aud disenthralled," can meet with any thing but the ridicule and
contempt of mankind, while that soil swarms, both on and under its surface, with the
most abject and degraded wretches that ever bowed beneath the oppressor's yoke.

I have said that slavery is an established and inevitable condition of human society.
I do not speak of the name, but [ha fad. The Marcjuis of Normandy has lately de-
dared your operatives to be "i/t eject slaves,'^ Can it be denied? Probably, lor
such Piiilanlhropists as your Abolitionists care nothing for facts. They deal in terms
aud fictions. It is the word "slavery" which shocks their tender sensibilities; and
their imaginations associate it with "hydras and chimeras dire." The thing itself,
in its most hideous reality, passes daily under their view unheeded — a familiar face,
touching no chord of shame, sympathy or indignation. Yet so brutalizing is your
iron bondage, that the English operative is a bye word through tlie world. When
favoring fortune enables him to i;scape his priso'.i house, both in E-.rope and America
he is shuinied. With all the skill which 14 hours of daily labor from the tendcrest
age has ground into him, his discontent, which habit has made second nature, and his
depraved propensities, running riot when freed from his won;ed fetters, prevent his
cm[)loyment whenever it is not a matter of necessity. If we derived no other benefit
from African Slavery in the Southern Slates, than thai it deterred your freedmen from
coming hither, 1 should regard it as an inestimable blessing.

And how unaccountable is that philanthropy, which closes its eyes upon such a state
of things as you have at home, and turns its blurred vision to our afl'airs beyond the
Atlantic; meddling with matters which no way concern them — presiding, as you
have lately done at meetings, to denounce the "iniquity of our laws," and "the atro-
city of our practices," and to sympathise with infamous wretches imprisoned hc:re for
violating decrees promulgated both by God and man. Is this doing the work of "your
Father which is in heaven," or is it seeking only "that you may have glory of man?"
Do you remember the denunciation of our Saviour, "Woe unto you, Scribes and
Pharisees; Hypocrites! for )e make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but with-
in they are full ot extortion and excess."

Butat'ter all, supposing that every thing you say of slavery be true, and its aboh'-
tion a matter ol" the last necessity, how dr) you expect to elfeet emancipation, and
what do you calculate will he the result of its acfomplishment? As lo the means to
be used, the abolitionists, I believe, aflect to differ, a large proportion of them pre-
tc'iding that their sole purpose is to apply "moral suasion" to the slave-holders
themselves. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what their idea of "mo-
ral suasion" is. Their discourses — yours is no exception — are all tirades, the exor-
dium, argument and peroration, tnrning on the epithets '"tyrants," "thieves," "mur-
derers," addressed to us. They revile .us as "atrocious monsters," "violators of the
laws of nature, God, and man," our homes the abode of every iniquity, our land a
"brothel." We retort, that they are "incendiaries" and "assassins." Delightful
argument! Sweet, potent "moral suasion!" What slave has it treed — what pro-
selue can it ever make? But if your course was wholly dilferent — if you distilled
nectar from your lips, and discoursed sweerest music, could you reasonably indulge
the hope of accomplisliing your object by such means? Nay, supposi ig that we
were all convinced, and thought of slavery precisely as you do, at what era of "mo-
ral suasi(jn" do you imagine you could prevail on us to give up a thousand inillion of
dollars in the value ofour slaves, and a thousand million ot dollars more in the depre-
ciaticjn ol' our lands, in consetpience of the want of laborers to cultivate them? Con-
sider: were ever any people, civilized or savage, persuaded by any argument, iiuman
or Divine, to surrender voluntarily two thousand million of dollars? — Would you think
of asking five millions of JCiiglishmen to contribute either at once or gradually, four
bundled and fifty millions of pounds sterling, to the cause of philanthropy, even if the

Goih Hammond^ s Letters on Southern Sl(W3ry. 19

purpose to be accomplished was not of doubtful goodness? If you are prepared to
undertake such a selieuie, try it at home. Collect your fund, purcliaso our slaves,
and do with them as you like. Be all the glory yours, fairly and honestly won. But
you see the absurdity of such an idea: \vvay thou, with your pretended "moral sua-
sion." You know it is mere nonsense. The abolitionists have no faith in them-.
selves. Those who expect to accomplish any thing, count on means altogether dif-
ferent. They aim first to alarm us; that failing, to compel us by tbrco to emancipate
our slaves, at our own risk and cost. To these purposes, they obviously direct all
their energies. Our Northern liberty men, have endeavored to disseminate their
destructive doctrines among our slaves, and excite them to insurrection. But we
have put an end to that, and stricken terror into them. They dare not show their
faces here. Then they declared they would dissolve the Union. Let them do it.
The North would repent it far more than the South. We are not alarmed at the
idea. We are well content to give up the Union sooner than sacrifice two thousand
million of dollars, and with them all the rights we prize. You may take it for gran-
ted, that it is impossible to persuade or alarm us into emancipation, or to making the
first step towards it. Nothing then, is left to try, but sheer force. If the abolitionists
are prepared to expend their own treasure, and s'ued their own blood, as freely as
-hey ask us to do, let them come. We do not court the conflict; but we will not and
vyj cannot shrink from it. If they are ready to go so far: if, as I expect, their phi-
lathropy recoils from it: if they are looking only I'or cheap glory, let them turn their
thcights elsewhere and leave us in peace. Be the sin, the danger and the evils of
slavery all our own. We compel, we ask none to share them with us.

Iim well aware that a notable scheme has been set on foot to achieve abolition,
by naking, what is by courtesy called "free" labor, so njuch che:iperthan slave labor
as toforce the abandonment of the latter- Though we are l)eginning to manufac-
ture zcith slaves. I do not think you will attempt to pinch your operatives closer in
Great liritain. Yon cannot curtail the rags with which they vainly attempt to cover
their nakedness, nor reduce the porridge, which barely, and not always, keeps those
who have employment, from perishing with famine. When you can do this, we will
consider whether our slaves may not dispense with a pound or two of bacon per
week, or a few garments annually. Your aim, however, is to cheapen labor in the
tropics. The idea of doing this by exporting your 'bold yeomanry,' is I presume given
up. Cromwell tried it when he sold the captured followers of Charles into West India
slavery, where they speedily found graves. Nor have your recent experiments on
British and even Dutch constituiions succeeded better. Have you still faith in carrying
thither your Coolies from Hindostan? Doubtless that once wild robber race, whose
highest eulogium was, that they did not murder merely fijr the love of blood, have
been tamed riown, and are perhaps "keen for immigration," for since your civiliza-
tion has reached it, plunder has grown scarce in Guzerat. But that is the result of
the experiment thus far? Have the Coolies, ceasing to handle arms, learned to han-
dle spades, and, prove hardy and profitable laborers? On the contrary, broken in
spirit and stricken with disease at home, the wretched victims whom you have hitherto
kidnapped fi)r a bounty, confined in depots, put under hatches and cariied across the
ocean, forced into "voluntary imigration," have done littlejbut lie down and die on the
pseudo soil oi freedom. At the end of five years, two-thirds, in some colonies a
large proportion, are no more! Humane and pious contrivance! To alleviate the
fancied sufferings of the accuised posterity of Ham, you sacrifice by a crued death
two-thirds of the chixlren of the blessed Shern — and demand the applause ofchristians,
the blessing of heaven! If this "experiment" is to go on, in God's name try your
hand upon the Thugs. That other species of "Itn;nigration" to which you are I'esort-
ing, I will consider presently.

But what do you calculate will be the result of emancipation? You will probably
point me by way of answer to the West Indies — doubtless to Antigua, the great boast
of abolition. Admitting that it has succeeded there — which I w'll do for the sake of
argument — do you not know the reason of it? The true and only causes of whatever
success has attended it in Antigua are, that the population was belore crowded, and
all ornearly all the arable land in cultivation. The emancipated negroes could not,

20 Gov. flanimond's Letters on Southern Slavery.

many ofthem, getaway if thoy desired; and Uiiew not where to go in case they did.
They had practically no alternative but to remain on the spot; and remaining, they
must work on the terms of the proprietors, or perish — ihe stron;^ arm of the mother
country tbrhiddiiig all hope ot'seizing the Land lor themselves. The i'roprielors, well
knowing that ihey could thus c>jmmand labor tor the merest necessities of life, which
was much clieaper than maintaining the non oirective, as well as the effective slaves
in a style which decency and interest, if not humanity, required, willingly accepted
half their value, and at once realized far more than the interest on the other half in
the diminution of their losses, and the reduced comforts of the freemen. One of your
most illustrious Judges, who was also a profound and philosophical Historian, has
said "that Villeinage was not abolished, but went to decay in England." This
was the process. This has been the process whenever (the name ol) Villeina"e
or Slavery has been successfully abandoned. Slavery in fact "went into decay"
in Antigua. I have admitted that under similar circumstances, it might profitably
cease here — that is, profitably to the individual proprietors. Give me half the
"alue of my slaves, and compel them to remain and labor on my plantation at
10 to 11 cents a day, as they do in Antigua, supporting themselves and families,
and you shall have them to-morrow, and if you like dub them "free." Not to
stickle, I would surrender them without price. No — I recall my words: My hu'
manity revolts at the idea. I am attached to my slaves, and would not have art >r
part in reducing them to such a condition. I deny, however, that Antigua, a' a
community, is or ever will be as 'prosperous under present circumstances, as 'he
was before abolition, though fully ripe for it. The fact is well known, fhe
reason is, that the African, if not a distinct, is an inferior race, and never will
eflect, as it never has effected, as much in any other condition as in tlu,t of
Slavery.

I know of no Slaveholder who has visited the West Indies since Slavery wao abol-
ished, and published /t/s views of it. All our facts and opinions come through the
friends of the experiment, or at least those not opposi'd to it. Taking tlicsc, even
without allowance, to be true as stated, 1 do not see where the Abolitionists find cause
for exultation. The tables of exports, which are the best evidences of the condition
of a people, exhibit a woful fdling off — excused, it is true, by unprecedented droughts
and iiurricancs, to which their free labor seems unaccountably more subject than slave
labor used to be. I will not go into detail. It is well known that a largo proportion
of British Legislation and expenditure, and that proportion still constantly increasing,
is most anxiously devoted to repairing the monstrous error of emancipation. You
are actually galvanizing your expiring colonies. The truth, deduced from all the
facts, was thus pithily stated by the London Quarterl} Review, as long ago as 1840.
"None of the benefits anticipated by mistaken good intentions have been realized,
while every evil wished for by knaves and foreseen by the wise, has been painfully
verified. The wild rashness of fanaticism has made the emancipation of the
Slaves equivalent to the loss of one half of the West Indies, and yet put back
the chance of Negro civilization." [Art. Ld. Dudlci/s Letters.) Such are the
real fruits of your nevcr-to-be-too-much-glorificd abolition, and the valuable dividend
of your twenty millions of pounds sterling invested therein.

No. 4.

Revival of the Slave Trade under a new name — Emancipation in the United Stales
certain to result in the Extermination of the Negro Race — Conclusion.

If any farther proof was wanted, ol the utter and well known though not yet openly
avowed failure of West Indian emancipation, it would be furnished b)' the startling
fact that ihe African Slave Trade has been actually revived tinder the ausp'ecs and
protection of the British Government. Under the specious guise of "Immigration"
they are replenishing these Islands with slaves from the coast of Africa. Y»)ur colo-
ny of Sierra Leone, founded on that coast to prevent the Slave Trade, and peopled

Gov. HammomVs Letters on Southern Slavery. 21

by the by in the first instance by norrmes stolen from these States during the Revo-
lutionary War, is the depot where captives taken from Shivers by your armed vessels,
are transported. I mi2[ht say returned, since nearly half the Africans carried across
the Atlantic are understood to be embarked in this vicinity. The wretched survivors,
M'ho are there sot at liberty, are immediarely seduced to •'imnii^rite" to the West
Indies. The business is systematically carried on by Black "Delofiates" sent ex-
pressly from the West Indies, where on arrival, the "immigrants" are sold info
Slavery for tweniy-one years, under conditions ridiculously trivial and wickedly void,
since few or none will ever be able to derive any advantage Crom them. The whole
prime of life thus passed in bondage, it is contemplated, and doubtless it will be car-
ried into eftect to turn them out in their old age to shii't for themselves, and to supply
their places with fresh and vigorous "Immigrants." Was ever a system of slavery
so barl)arous devised before? Can you think of comparing it with ours? Even your
own Religious Missionaries of Sierra Leone, denounce it "as worse than the Slave
state in Africa." And your Black Delegates fearful of the influence of these Mis-
sionaries as well as on account of the inadequate supply of the captives, are now
preparing to procure the able bodied and comparatively industrious Kroomen of the
interior, hy purchasing from their Headmen the privilege of inveigling them to the
West India market! So ends the magnificent farce — perhaps I should say tragedy
of West India Abolition! I will not harrow your feelings by asking you to review
the labors of your life and tell me what you and your brother Enthusiasts have ac-
complished for "injured Africa," but while agreeing with Lord Stowell, that "Villei-
nage decayed," and admitting that slavery might do so also, I think I am fully justi-
fied by passed and passing events, in saying, as Mr. Grosvenor said of the|Slave trade,
"that its abolition is impossible."

You are greatly mistaken, however, you think that the consequences of emancipa-
tion here, would be similar and no more injurious than those which followed from it
in your little seagirt West India Islands, where nearly all were blacks. The system
of slavery is not in "decay" with us. It flourishes in full and growing vigor. Our
country is boui.dless in extent. Dotted here and there with villages and tiekis, it is
for the most part covered with immense forests and swamps of almost unknown size.
In such a country, with a people so restless as ours, communicating of course some of
that spirit to their domestics, can you conceive of any thing short of the powerof the
master over the slave, could confine the African race, notoriously idle and improvi-
dent, to labor on our plantations? Break this bond, but for a day, and these planta-
tions will be solitudes. The negro loves change, novelty and sensual excitements
of all kinds, when awake. "Reason and order," of which Mr. W^ilbertbrce said "liberty
was the child," do not characterise him. Released from his present obligations his
first impulse would be to go somewhere. And here no natural boundaries would
restrain him. At first they would all seek to towns and rapidly accumulate in squal-
lied groups upon their outskirts. Driven thence by the "armed police" which would
immedialely spring into existence, they would scatter in all directions. Some bodies
of them might wander to the "free" States or to the western wilderness, marking
their tracks by their depredations or their corpses. Many would roam wild in our
"Big woods." Many more would seek the recesses of our swamps f)r secure covert.
Few, very few of them could be prevailed on to do a stroke of work, none to labor
continuously, v/hile a head of cattle, sheep or swine, could be found in our ranges, or
an ear of corn nuddcd in our abandoned fields. These exhausted, our folds and
poultry yards, barns and store-hous(!S would become their prey. Finally, our scat-
tered dwellings would be plundered, perhaps fired, and the inmates murdered.
How long do you suppose we could bear these things? llow long would it be before
we should sleep with rifles at our bedsides, and never move without one in our hands?
This work once begun, let the story of our British ancestors and the aboriginese of
country tell the sequel. Far more rapid however, would be the catastrophe. "Ere
many moons went by," the Afiican race would be exterminated, or reduced again to
slavery, their ranks recruited, after your example, by fresh "Emigrants" from their
father land.

Is timely preparation and gradual emancipation suggested to avert these horrible
consequences? 1 thought your experience in the West Indies had at least done so

22 Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery.

much as lo explode that iJoa. Ifit {\\\\oC\ thoro, much more would it fail here, wlicre
the two races, a|)|)roximatiiig to eijuality in iiuuiljcrs, are daily and hourly in the
closest contact. (Jive room for but a sinjile spark of real jealousy to l)e kindled be-
tween tliiMn, and the explosion would be instantaneous and universal. It is the, most
fatal of all fallacies to suppose thiit these two races can exist together, after any lengtli
oftime or any process of prepariitio:i, on terms at all approaching to equality. Of
this, both of them are linally and lixedly convinced. They differ essentially, in all
the leading traits that characterise the varieties of the human species, and color draws
an indellible and insuperable line of separation between them. Every scheme
founded upon the idea that they can remain together on the same soil, beyond the
briefest period, in any other relation than precisely that which now subsists between
them, is not only preposterous, but fraught with deepest danger. If there was no
alternative but to try the "experiment" here, reason and humanity dictate that the
sufTciing of "gradualism" should be saved, and the catastrophe of "immediate aboli-
tion," enacted as ra[)idly as possible. Are you impatient for the performance to
commence? Do you long to gloat over the scenes I have suggested, but could not
hold the pen to portray? In your long life many such have passed under your re-
view. You know that iheii are not ^'impussible." Can they be to your taste? Do
you believe that in laboriug to bring them about the Abolitionists are doing the
will of God? No! God is not there. It is the work of Satan. The Arch-fiend,
under specious guise, has found his way into your souls, and with false appeals to
philanthropy, and foul insinuations to andjition, instigates them to rush headlong to
the accomplishment of his diabolical designs.

We live in a wonderful age. The events of the last three quarters of a century
appear to have revolutionized the human mind. Euter|)rise and aud)ition are only
limited in their purposes by the horizon of the imaginatinn. It is the transcendental
era. In philosophy, religion, government, science, arts, commerce, nothing that has
been is to be allowed to be. Conservation in any form is scoded at: The slightest
taint of it is fatal. Where will all this end? If you can tolerate one ancient maxim,
let it be that the best criterion of the future is the past. That, if any thing, will give
a clue. And, looking back only through your time, vvhat was the earliest feat of
this same Transcendentalism? The rays of the new moral Drummond Light, were
first concentrated to a tbcus at Paris, to illuminate the universe. In a twinkling it
consumed the political, religious, and social systems of France. It could not be ex-
tinguished there until literally drowned in blood. And then from its ashes arose that
supernatural man, who, for twenty years, kept affrighted Europe in convulsions.
Since that time, its scattered beams, refracted by broader surfaces, have nevertheless
continued to scathe wherever they have tiillen. What political structure, what reli-
gioiis creed but has felt t:ie galvanic shock, and even now trembles to its foundations?
iMankind, still horror-strickei!. by the catastrophe of France, have shrunk from rash
ex|)erimenls upon social systems. But they have been practising in the East, around
the Mediterranean, and through the West India Islands. And growing confident, a
portion of them seem desperately bent on kindling the all-devouring flame in the
bosom of our land. Let it once again blaze up to heaven, and another cycle of blood
and devastation would dawn upon the world. For our sake, and lijr the sake o»
those infatuated men, who are madly driving on the conflagration; for the sake of
human nature, we are called on to strain e\ery nerve to arrest it. And be assured
oiir etlbrts will be bounded only with our being. jNor do I doubt that five millions
of people, brave, intelligent, united, and prepared to hazard every thing, will, in such
a cause, with the blessing of God, sustain themselves. At ail events, come what
may, it is ours to meet it.

\Vo are well aware of the light estimation in which the Abolitionists, and those
who are taught by them, protess to hold us. We have seen the attempt of a portion
of the Free Church of Scotland to reject our alms, on the ground that we were
"Slave-Drivers," after sending missionaries to solicit them. And we have seen Mr.
O'Connell, the "irresponsible master" of millions of ragged serfs, from whom, poverty
stricken as they are, he contrives to wring a splendid privy jiurse, throw back with
contumely the "tribute" of his own countrymen liom this land of "miscreants."

Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 23

These ppop'o may exhaust their slang and make black-guards of themselves; but
they cannot defile us. And as for the suggestion to exclude slave-holders from your
London clubs, we scout it. Many of us, indeed, do gf) to London, and we have seen
your breed of gawky Lords, both there and here, but it never entered into our
conceptions, to look on them as better than ourselves. Xor can we l)e annoyed by
the ridiculous airs of such u|)starts as your O'ConnelTs, Ritchie's, Macaulej's, and
the like. The American slave-holders, collectively or individually, ask no favors
of any man, or race who tread the earth. In none of the attril)utes of men, mental
or physical, do they acknowledge or fear superiority elsewhere. They stand in the
broadest lii^ht of the knowledge, civilization and improvement of the age. as much
favored of heaven as any of the sons of Adam. Exacting nothing undue, they yield
nothing but justice and courtesy, even to royal blood. They can neither be flattered,
duped, ner bullied out of their rights or their property. They smile with contempt
at scurrility, and vapouring beyond the seas, and they turn their backs upon it where
it is "irresponsi!)le;" but insolence that ventures to look them in the lace, vvill never
fail to be chastised.

I think 1 may trust you will not regard this letter as intrusive. I should never have
entertained the idea of writing it, had you not opened the correspondence. If you
think any thing in it harsh review your own — which I regret I lost soon after it was
received — and you will probably find that you have taken your revenge beforehand.
If v'ou have not, transfer an equitable share of what you deem severe to the account
oftlie Abolitionists at large. They have accumulated against the slave-holders a ba-
lance of invective which, with all our efforts, we shall not be able to lipuidate much
short of the era in which your national debt will be paid. At all events, I have no
desire to ofl^end you personally, and with the best wishes for your continued health, I
have the honor to be

Your obedient seruant,

" . PL FIAMMOND.

No. 5,

SiLVEU Bluff, S. C. March 24, 1845.

Sir: — In my letter to you of the 28th January — which I trust you have received
ere this — I mentioned that I had lost your circular letter soon after it had come to
hand. It was, I am glad to say, only mislaid, and has within a tew days been recov.
ered. A second perusal of it induces me to resume my pen. Unwilling to trust my
recollections from a single reading, I did not in my last communication attempt to
follow the course of your argument, and meet directly the points made and the terms
used. I thought it better to take a general view of the subject which could not fail to
traverse your most material charges. I am well aware however that, for fear of be-
itig tedious, I omitted many interesting topics altogether, and abstained from a complete
discussion of some of those introduced. I do not propose now to exhaust thi; subject;
which it would require volumes to do; but without waiting to learn — which I may
never do — your opinion of what I have already said, I sit down to supply some of the
deficiencies of my letter of January, and, with your circular before me, to reply to
such parts of it as have not been fully answered.

It is, I perceive, addressed among others to "such as have never visited the Southern
States" of this confederacy, and proftsses to enlighten their ignorance of the actual
''condition of the poor slave in their own country." I cannot help thinking you would
have displayed prudence in confining the circulation of your letter altogether to such
persons. You might then have indulged with impunity in giving, as )ou have done,
a picture of slavery drawn from your own excited imagination, or from those impure
fijuntaius, the Martineaus, Marryatts, Trollopes and Dickenses, who have profited by
catering, at our expense, to the jealous sensibilities and debauched tastes of your coun-
trymen. Admitting that you are familiar with the history of slavery and the past
discussions of it, as I did, 1 now think rather broadly, in my former letter, what can
you know of the true condition of the "poor slave" here? i am not aware that vou

24 Gov. ILmimond-s Letters on Southern Slavery.

have ever visited this country, or even the West Indies. Can you suppose that because
you have devoted your lile to the investigation of the suhject — conimenciiiii; it untler
the influence olan enthusiasm so melancholy at first and so volcanic aCierwards as to
be nothing short ot"hal!ucinalion — puisuinj^ it as men o[' one idecn\o everything, with
the single puipose of establishing your own view of it — gathering your information
from discharged seamen, disappointed speculators, lactiouspoliticians, visionary reform-
ers and scuriilous tourists — opening your ears to every species of com|)laint, exag-
geration and llilsehood that interested ingenuity could invent, and never lor a moment
questioning the truth of anything that could make for your cause — can you suppose
that all this has qualified you, living the while in Eniiland, to form or approxunate
towards the formation of a correct opinion of the condition of slaves Among us? I
know the power of self-delusion. I have not the least doubt that you think yourself
the very best informed man alive on this subject, and that many think so likewise.
So far as lacts go, even after deducting from your list a great deal that is not fact, I
Avill not deny that probably your colhction is the most extensive in existence. But
as to the trulh in regard to slavery, there is not an adult in this region but knows more
of it than you do. Trulh and fact are, you are aware, by no means synonimous
terms. Ninety-nine facts may constitute a falsehood: the hundredth, added or alone,
gives the truth. With all your knowledge of facts, 1 undertake to say that you are
entirely and grossly ignorant of the I'eal condition of our slaves. And from all that I
can see, you are equally ignorant of the essential principles of human association
revealed iu history, both sacred and profane, on which slavery rests, and which will
perpetuate it forever in some form or other. However you may declaim against it;
however powerlully you may array atrocious incidents; whatever appeals you may
make to the heated imaginations and tender sensibilities of mankind, believe me, your
total blindness to the 2rhoJe truth, which alone constitutes the truth, incapacitates you
from ever making an impression on the sober reason and sound common sense of the
world. You may seduce thousands — you can convince no one. Whenever and
Avherever you or the advocates of your cause can arouse the passions of the weak-
minded and the ignorant, and, bringing to bear with them the interests of the vicious
and unprincipled, overwhelm common sense and reason — as God sometimes permits
to be done — you may triumph. Such a triumph we have witnessed in Great Britain.
But I trust it is far distant here: Nor can it from its nature be extensive or enduring.
Other classes of Reformers, animated by the same spirit as the Abolitionists, attack
the institution of marriage, and even the established relations of Parent and Child.
And they collect instances of barbarous cruelty and shocking degradation which rival,
if they do not throw into the shade, 3-our slavery statistics. I5ut the rights of marriage
and parental authority rest upon truths as obvious as they are unchangeable — coming
home to every human being, — self-impressed forever on the individual mind, and can-
not be shaken until the whole man is corrupted, nor subve.ted until civilized society
Ijecomes a putrid mass. Domestic slavery is not so universally understood, nor can it
make such a direct appeal to individuals or society beyond its pale. Here, prejudice
and passion have room to sport at the expense of others. They may be excited and
urged to dangerous action, remote from the victims they mark out. They may, as they
have done, effect great mischief, but they cannot bo made to maintain, in the long
run, dominion over reason aiid common sense, nor ultimately put down what God has
ordained.

You deny however that slavery is sanctioned by God, and your chief argument is that
when he gave to Adam dominion over the fruits of the earth and the animal creation
he stopped there. "He never gave him any further right over his fellow men."
You restrict the descendants of Adam to a very short list of rights and powers, duties
and responsibilities, if you limit them solely to those conferred and enjoined in the first
cha|)ter of Genesis. It is very obvious that in this narrative of the creation Moses
did not have it in view to record any part of the Law intended for the government of
man in his social or political state. Eve was not yet created; the expulsion had not
yet taken place; Cain wns unborn; and no allusion whatever is made to the mani-
fold decrees of God to which these events gave rise. The only serious answer this
argument deserves is to say, what is so manifestly true, that God's not expressly giving

Gov. HammomVs Lefters on Southern S'/airrij. 25

to Adam "any right over his fellow men" by no means excluded Him from conferring
that rigiit on his descendants; which he in i'act did. VV^; know that Aljiaham, the
chosen one of God, exercised it and held property in his fellow man, even anterior to
the period when property in land was acknowledged. We might infer that Cod had
authorised it. But we are not reduced to inference or conjecture. At the hazard of
iatiguing you by repetition, I will again refer you to the ordinances of the scriptures.
Innumerable in.^tances might be quoted where God has given and commanded men to
assume d<jminion over their ieliow men. But one will suffice. In the twenty-rifili
chapter of Leviticus you will find Domestic Slavery — preciseli/ siicli us is mainlaincd
at this day in these States — ordained and established by God, in language which I
defy you to pervert so as to leave a doubt on any honest mind that this institution was
founded by Him and decreed, to be ])erpetuaL I quote the words:

Leviticus, 25 cb. 44 v.: "Both thy Bondmen and thy Bouilmaids which thou shalt
have, siiall be of the Heathen [Ad'icans] that are round about you: ol' them ye shall
buy Bondmen and Bondmaids.

45: Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them
shall yc buy, and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land
[descendants of Africans?] and they shall be your possession."

46: '■'■And.yc shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to in-
herit them for a possession. Thky shall be your Bo>dmen foeever."

What human Legislatiu-e could make a decree more full and explicit than this?
What court of Law or (Miancery could defeat a title to a slaye couched in terms so
clear and complete as these? As this is the Law of God, whom you pretend to wor-
ship, while you denounce and traduce us for respecting it.

It seems scarcely credible, but the fact is so, that you deny this Law so plainly
M'ritten, and in the face of it, have the hardihood to declare that "though slavery is not
specifically yet it is virtually forbidden in the scriptures, because all the crimes which
necessarily arise out of slavery, and which can arise from no other source, are repro-
l)ated there and threatened with divine vengeance." Such an unworthy subterfuge
is scarcely entitled to consideration. But its gross absurdity may be exposed in tew
words. I do not know what crimes you particularly allude to as arising from slave-
ry. But you will perhaps admit — not because they are denounced in the decalogue,
which the Abolitionists respect only so far as they choose, but because it is the m-
mediate interest of most men to admit — that disobedience to parents, adultery, and
stealing, are crimes. Yet these crimes "necessarily arise from the relations of parent
and child, marriage, and the possession of private property; at least they "can arise
from no other sources." Then, according to your argument, it is "virtually forbidden"
to marry, to beget children, and to hold private property! Nay it is forbidden to live,
since murder can only be perpetrated on living subjects. You add that "in the same
way the gladiatorial shows of old, and other barbarous customs, were not specifically
forbidden in the New Testament, and yet Christianity was the solo means of their
su|)i)ression." This is \'evy true. But these shows and barbarous customs thus sup-
pressed, were not authorised, by God. They were not ordained and commanded by
God for the benefit of His chosen people and mankind, as the purchase and holding
of Bondmen and Bondmaids were. Had they been, they would never have been
"suppressed by Christianity" any more than slavery can be by your party. Although
Christ came "not to destroy but fulfill the Law" he nevertheless did formally abrogate
some of the ordinances promulgalini by Moses, and all such as wtM-e at war with his
mission of "peace and good will on earth." He "specifically" annuls, for instance,
one "barbarous custom" sanctioned by those ordinances, where he says: "ye have
heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto
you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to
him the other, also." Now, in the lime of Christ it was usual tor masters to put their
slaves to death on the slightest provocation. They even killed and cut them up to
feed their fishes. He was undoubtedly aware of these things, as well as of the Law
and Commandment I have quoted. He could oidy have been restrained fram de-
nouncing them, as he did the 'Hex lalionis," because he knew that in despite of these
barbarities the institution of slavery was at the bottom a sound and v.holesome as

26 Gov. HdinmoiuVs Letters on Southern Slcwery.

woll as lawful oiip. Certaiij it is, that iti FTis wisdom and purity he did not see propei*
to interft'ie with it. In your wisdom, however, you make the sacrilegious attempt to
overthrow it.

You quoti; tlie diMiunriution ot'Tyro and Si ion, and say that "the chief reason jjiv-
en hy the Prt)pliet Joel fiir their destruction, was, that ihey were notorious beyond all
others for carrying on the Slave Trade." I am afraid you think we have no Biljles
in the slave States, or that we are unahle to read ihem. I cannot otherwise account
for your making this reference, unless indeed your own reading is confined to an ex-
purgated edition, prepared for the use of Abolitionists, in which everything relating
to slavery that militates against their view of it is lelt out. The Prophet Joel denoun-
ces the Tyrians and Sidoniaus because "The children also of Jiidah and tlie children
of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the (inicians." And what is the divine vengeance
of this "notorious slave trading?" Hear it. "And I wili sell your sons and daughters
into the hands of the children of Judah, a-id they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a
people lar oH'; tor the liord hath spoken it." Do you call sliis a condemnation ot slave,
trading? 'I'he I'rophet makes (Jod Himselfa [)artici[)ator in the crime, ifthat be one.
"The Lord hath spoken it," he says, that the Tyrians and Sidotiians shall be soJd in-
to slavery to strangers. Their real offence, w;is in enslaving the Chosen Peo[)!e;
and their sentence was a repetition of the old Command, to make slaves -of the "Hea-
then round about."

I have dwelt upon your Scriptural argument because you profi'ss to believe the Bi-
])le; because a large [jroportion of the Abolitionists profess to do the same, and to act
under its sanction; because your Circular is addressed in pait to "professing Chris-
tians;" and because it is from that class mainly that you expect to seduce converts by
your anti-christian, I may say, infidel doctrines. It would be wholly unnecessary to
answer you to anyone who reads the scriptures (or himself, and cr)nstrues them ac-
cording to any other formula than that which the Abolitionists are wickedly endeav-
oring to impose upon the world. The scriptural sanction of slavery is in fact so palpa-
ble, and so strong, that both wings of your party are beginning to acknowledge it. —
The more sensible and moderate admit, as the organ of the Free Church of Scotland,
the North British Review, has lately done, that they '■^are precluded by the statements
and conduct of the Apostles J ram regarding mere slave-holding as essentially sinful,"
while the desperate and reckless, who are bent on keeping up the aj^itation at every
hazard, declare, as has been done in the Anti-Slavery Record, "If our inqui y turns
out in favor of slavery, it is the Bible that must fall, and not the rights op
iiiMAX NATURE." You caunot, I am satisfied, much longer maintain before the
world, the Christian plat(i)rm from which to wage war upon our Institutions. Driven
from it, you must abandon the contest, or, rejnidiating Revelation, rush into the
horrors ot Natural Religion.

Y^our next coinplaint, that our slaves are kept in bondage by the "Law of force.'
In what country or condition of mankind do you see human allairs regulated merely
by the law of love? L^nless I am greatly mistaken you will, if you look over the world,
find nearly all certain and permanent rights, civil, social, and I may even add religi-
ous, resting on and ultimately secured by the "law of force." The power of majori-
ties— of aristocracies — of Kings — nay of priests, for the most part, and of property,
resolves itself at last into "force," and could not otherwise be long maintained. Thus
in every turn of yf)ur argument against our system of slavery, you advance, whether
conscious of it or not. radical and revolutionary doctrines calculated to change the
whole face of the world, to overthrow all government, disorganize society, and re-
duce man to a stale of nature — red with blood, and shrouded once more in barbaric
ignorance. But you greatly err, if you suppose, because we rely on force in the last
resort to maintain our supremacy over our slaves, that ours is a stern and unfeeling do-
mination at all to be compared in hard-hearted severity to that exercised, not over
the mere laborer only, but by the iiigher over each lower order, wherever the British
sway is acknowledged. You say, that if those you address were "to spend one day
in the South they wuuld return home with impressions against slavery never to be eras-
ed." But the fact is universally the reverse. I have known nuinerous instances, and
I never knew a single one, where there was no other cause of offence and no object

Gor. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 27

to promote by falsehood, that iDclividuals from ihe non-siave-holclin<,' States did not,
after residinjr among us long (Miouijli to understand th(> siihjoct, "rctnrn home" {ode
fend our slavery. It is malter of regret, that you have never tried the experiment
yomself. I do not doubt you would have been converted, for I give you credit for an
honest though perverted mind. You would have seen how weak and futile is ail ab-
stract reasoning about this matter, and that, as a l)uilding may not be less elegant in
its jjroportions, or taseful in its ornaments, or virtuous in its uses, for being based upon
granite, so a system of human government, though founded on force, may develope
and cultivate the tenderest and purest sentiments of the human heart. And our pa-
triarchal scheme ofdomestic servitude is indeed well calculated to awaken the higher
and finer feelings of our nature. It is not wanting in its enthusiasm and its poetry.
The relations ofthe most beloved and hon(U-ed chief, and the most faithfid and admir-
ing subjects, whicli from the time of Homer have l)een the theme of song, are trijiid
and unfelt compared with those existing between the master and his slaves — who
served his father, and rocked his cradle, or have been born in his house-hold, and
look forward to serve his children — who have been through li!e the props of his for-
tune, and the ol)jec1s of his care — who have partaken of his griefs, and looked to him
fjr comfort in their own — whose sickness he has so often watched over and releaved
— whose holidays he has so often made joyous ijy liis bounties and his presence: tor
whose welfare when absent his anxious solicitude never ceases, and whose hcaity and
atiectionate greetings never fail to welc(Miie him home. In thiscold, calculating, am-
bitious world of ours, there are few ties more heartfelt, or of more benignant influ-
ence, than those which mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient
system, handed down fVom the Father of Israel. The unholy purpose of the Aboli-
tionists, is to destroy by defiling it; to infuse into it the gall and bitterness which ran-
kle in their own envenomed bosoms; to poison the minds of the master and the ser-
vant; turn love to hatred, array ^\force" against force, and hurl ail,

"With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition.''

You think it a great "crime" that we do not pay our slaves "wages," and on this ac-
count pronounce us "robbers," In my former letter I showed that the labor of our
slaves was not without great cost to us, and that in fact they themselves receive more
in return for it than your hirelings do for theirs. For what purpose do men labor, but
to support themselves and their families in what comfort they are able? The efforts
of mere physical labor seldom suffice to provide more than a livelihood. And it is a
well known and shocking fact, that while few operatives in Great Britain succeed in
securing a comfortable living, the greater part drag out a miseral)le existence, and
sink at last under absolute want. What avail is it that you go through the form of
paying them a pittance of m hat you call "wages," when you do not, in return fiir their
services, alhnv them what alone they ask — and have a just right to demand — enough
to feed, clothe and lodge them, in health and sickness, with reasonahle conrit(>rt. —
Though we do not give "wages" in money, we do tiiis fijr our slaves, and they are
therefore better rewarded than yours. It is the prevailing vice and error ofthe age,
and one from which the Abolitionists, with all their saiiuly |)relensions, are far from
being free, to bring everything to the standard of money. You make gold and silver
of happiness. The American slave must be wretched indeed, because lie is not
compensated for his services in cash. It is altogether praiseworthy to pay the laborer
a shilling a day and let him starve on it. To supply all his wants abundantly, and at
all times, yet withhold from him money, is among "the most reprobated crimes." —
The fact cannot be denied, that the mere laborer is now and always has been, every-
where that barbarism has ceased, enslaved. Among the innovations of modern times
following "the decay of villeinage," has been the creation of a new system of slavery.
The primitive and patriarchal, which may also lie called the sacred and natural sys-
tem, in which the laborer is under the personal control of a fellow-being endowed
with the sentiments and sym[)attiies of humanity, exists arn(nig u.s. It has been al-
most everywhere else superceded by tfie modern artificial money-poucr system, in
which man — his thews and sinews, his hopes and afTections, his very being, are all
subjected to the dominion oi' Capital — a monster without a heart— cold, stern, arith-

23 Gov. IfnmmoYKVs Ldtcrs on Soiitlicrn Slavery,

iTiPtical — sticking to tlie bond — taking ovi^r "tho pound of flesh" — working up human
lift' with Engines, and retailing it out by weight and measure. His name of ok! was
•'.Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell from Heaven." And it is to extend his
I'jmpire, that you and your deluded coadjutors dedicate your lives. You are stirring
up mmkind to overthrow our Ileaven-ordained system of servitude, surrouiuled by in-
numerable checks, designed anti planted deep in the human heart by God and nature,
to substitute the absolute rult; ot' this "Spirit Reprobate" whose proper place was Hell.

You charge us with looking on our slaves "as chattels or brutes," and enter into a
somewhat olal>orate argument to prove that they have "human flirms," "talk," and
even "think." N(jw the fact is that, however you may indulge in this strain for efTect,
it is the Abolitionists, and not the Slavoholeers, who practically, and in the most im-
portant point of view, regard our slaves as "chattels or brutes." In your calculations
(if the consequences of emancipation, you pa.ss over entirely those which must prove
most serious, and which arise from the fact of their hii\n\r persons. You appear to think
that we might abstrain from the use of them as readily as if they were machines to be
laid aside, f>r cattle that might be turned out to find pasturage for themselves. I have
heretofore glanced at some of the results that would ibllow from breaking the bonds of
so m-ciny human beings now pi.'acefully and huppdy linked into our social system. The
tragic h orroi's, the decay and ruin that would for years, perhaps for ages, brood over
our land, if it could be accomplished, I will not attempt to portray. But do you fancy
the blight would, in such an event, come to us alone.' The diminution of the sugar
crop of the West Indies aflected Great Britain only, and there chiefly tl)e poor. It
was a matter of no moment to Capital, that Labor should have one comfort less. Yet
it has forced a reduction of" the I'lritish duty on sugar. Who can estimate the consc-
(]uencos that must follow the annihilation of the cotton crop of the slavo-holding States?
1 do not undervalue the importai»ce of other articles of commerce, but no calamity
could befall the world at all comparable to the sudden loss of two millions of bales of
cotton annually. From the deserts of Africa to the Siberian wilds — from Greenland
to the Chinese Wall — there is not a spot of earth but would feel the sensation. The
I'^actories of Europe would fall with a concussion that would shake down castles, pal-
aces, and even thrones; while the "purse-proud elbowing insolence" of our Northern
monopolists would disappear forever under the smooth speech of the Pedlar, scouring
our frontiers for a livelihood, or the blufT vulgarity of the South Sea whaler, f()llowing
the harpoon amid storms and shoals. Doubtless the Abolitionists think we could grow
cotton without slaves, or that at worst the reduction of the crop would be moderate
and temporary. Such gross delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are of our
condition here.

You declare that "the character of the people of the South has long been that of
hardened Infidels, who fear not (iod, and have no regard f^)r religion." I will not
repeat what I said in my former letter on this point. I only notice it to ask you how
you could possibly reconcile it to your profession of a Christian spirit, to make such a
malicious charge; to defile your soul w ith such a calumny against an unoflending people?

•'You are old;
Nature in you stands on tlic very verge
Of lier confine. You should be ruled and led
By some discretion."

May God forgive you.

Akin to this, is the wanton and furious assault made on us by Mr. Macaulay, in his
late speech on the Sugar duties, in the House of Commons, which has just reached me.
His denunciations are wholly without measure, and among other things he asserts,
"that S.avery in the United States wears its worst form; that, boasting of our civiliza-
tion, freedom, and frequenting Christian Churches, we breed up slaves, nay, beget
children fi)r slaves, and sidl them at so much a head." Mr. Macaulay is a Reviewer,
and he knows that he is "nothing if not critical." The practice of his trade has given
him the command of all the slashing and vituperative phrases of our language, and
the turn of his mind leads him to the habitual use of them. He is an author, and as
no copy-right law secures for him from this country a consideration for his writings, he
is not only independent of us, but naturally hates every thing American. He is the

Gov. HammoruVs Ldters on Southern Slarcnj. 29

Representative of ?]dingl)urgli; it is his cuo to decry our slavery, and in doing so he
may safely indulge the malignity of his temper, his indignation against us, and his
capacity lor railing. He has suflered once, for being in advance of his time in favor
of Abolition, and he does not intend that it shall be forgotten, or his claim passed
over to any crumb which may now be thrown to the vociferators in the cause. Ifho
does not know that the statements he has made respecting the slaveholders of this
country are vile and atrocious falsehoods, it is because he docs not think it worth his
while to be sure he speaks the truth, so that he speaks to his own purpose.
"Hie iiigcr est, hunc tii, Romanc caveto.''

Such exhibitions as he has made may draw the applause of a British House of Com-
mons, but among the sound and high-minded thinkers of the world, they can only
excite contempt and disgust.

But you are not content with depriving us of all religious feelings. You assert that
our slavery has also "demoralized the Northern States," and charge upon it not only
every common violation of good order there, but the "Mormon murders," the "Phila-
deli^hia riots," and all "the exterminating wars against the Indians." I wonder that
you did not increase the list by adding that it had caused the recent inimdation of the
Mississippi, and the hurricane in the West Indies — perhaps the insurrection of Re
becca, and the war in Scinde. You refer to the law prohibiting the transmission of
Abolition petitions through the mail, as proof of general corruption! You could not
do so, however, without noticing the late detected espionage over the British Post Of-
fice by a Minister of 'State. It is true, as you say, it "occasioned a general outburst
of national feeling" — from the opposition; and a "Parliamentary inquiry was institu-
ted" — that is moved, but treated quite cavalierly. At all events, though the fact was
admitted. Sir James Graham yet retains the Home Department. For one, I d) not
undertake to condemn him. Such things are not ag linst the laws and usages of your
country. I do not know fully what reasons of Slate may have influenced him and
justified his conduct. But I do know that there is a vast difference in point of "na-
tional morality" between the discretionary power residing in your Government to open
any letter in the public post office, and a well-defined and limited law to prevent the
circulation of certain specified incendiary writings by means of the United States Mail.

Having now referred to every thing like argument on the subject of Slavery that
is worthy of notice in your letter, permit me to remark on its tone and style, and
very extraordinary bearing upon other institutions of this country. You commence
by addressing certain classes of our people as belonging to "a nation whose charac-
ter is now so low in the estimation of the civilized world;" and throughout you main-
tain this tone. Did the Americans who were "under your roof last summer," inform
you that such language would be gratifying to their fellow-citizens, "having no prac-
tical concern with slave-holding?" Or do the infamous libels on America which you
read in our Abolition papers, induce you to believe that all that class of people are,
like the Abolitionists themselves, totally destitute of patriotism or pride of country?
Let me tell you that you are grossly deceived. And although your stock-brokers and
other speculators, who have been bitten in American ventures, may have raised a
sturming 'cry'' against us in England, there is a vast body of people here besides
slave-holders, who justly

"Deem their own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside."

And who hnoiii that at this moment we rank among the First Powers of the world —
a position which we not only claim, but are always ready and able to maintain.

The style you assume in addressing your Northern friends, is in perfect keeping
with your apparent estimation of them. Though I should be the last, perhaps, to
criticise mere style, I could not but be struck with the extremely simple manner of
your letter. You seem to have thought you were writing a Tract for benighted Hea-
then, and telling wonders never before suggested to their imagination, and so far above
their untotored comprehension, as to require to be related in the primitive language
of "the child's own book." This is sufficiently amusing; and would bo more so but
for the coarse and bitter epithets you continually apply to the poor slave-holders —

30 G!)i\ Hamni'jnd's Lvltcrs on SoiUheni Slaveri/.

e|)itliot.s which appear to he storeotypod for the use of Ahoh'tionists, and which form
a hirij;i' and material |)art of all their argninents.

But perliaps the most extraordinary part of your letter, is 3'oiir bold demniciatiou
of 'V/i6' shamrful compromises'' of our Constitution, and your earnest recoiniiiendatiou
to those you adtlress to overtiirow or revolutionize it. In so many words you say to
them, ''(/!>" WH/.s7 t'ilhrrsi'paralc yourselves i'rom n\l political connexion with the South,
and make your own laws; or if you do not choose such a separation, you must break
up the pM'tlical ascendancy which the Southern have had for so long a time over the
Northern States.'" The italics in this as in all other quotations are your own. It is
well for those who circulate your letter here, tliat the Constitution you denounce re-
quires an overt act to constitute Treason. It may be tolerated lor an American by
birth to use on his own soil the freedom of speakinj^ and writing which is guarantied
to him, and al)use our Constitution, our Union, and our people. liut that a Foreigner
should use such seditious language, in a Circular Letter addressed to a portion of the
American people, is a presumption well calculated to excite the indignation of all.
The party known in this country as the Abolition party has long since avowed the
sentiments yon express, and adopted the policy you enjoin. At the recent Presiden-
tial election they gave over G'2,000 votes for their own candidate, and held the balance
of power in two of the largest States — wanting but little of doing it in several others.
In the last four years their vote has quadrupled. Should the infatuation continue,
and their vote increase in the same ratio in the next four years, it will be as large as
the vote of the actual slave-holders of the Union. Such a [)rospect is doubtless ex-
tremely gratifying to you. It gives h pe of a contest on such terms as may insure the
downfall of Slavery or our Constitution. The South venerates the Constituiion, and
is prepared to stand by it forever, such as it came from the hands of our fathers; to
risk every thing to defend and maintain it in its integrity. But the South is under no
such delusion as to t)elieve that it derives any peculiar protection from the Union,
On the contrary, it is well known we incur peculiar danger, and that we bear far
more than our proportion of the l)urdens. The apprehension is also fast fading away,
that any of the dreadful consequences commonly predicted, will necessarily result
from a separation of the States. And come loliat may, we are firmly resolved that our
SYSTEM OF Domestic Slavery shall stand. The fate of the Union then — but
thank God not of Republican Government— rests mainly in the hands of the people
to whom your letter is addressed, the "professing Christians of the Northern States
having no concern with slave-holding," and whom with incendiary zeal you are en-
deavoring to stir up to strife — without which fanaticism can neither live, more, nor
have any being.

We have often been taunted for our sensitiveness in regard to the discussion of
Slavery. Do not suppose it is because we have any doubts of our rights, or scruples
about asserting them. There was a time when such doubts and scruples were en-
tertained. Our ancestors opposed the introduction of Slaves into this country, and a
feeli!ig averse to it was handed down from them. The enthusia tic love of liberty
fostered by our Revolution strengthened this teeling. And before the commence-
ment of the Abolition agitation here, it was the common sentiment that it was de-
sirat)le to get rid of Slavery. Many thought it our duty to do so. When that agi-
tation arose we were driven to a close examination of the suljject in all its bearings,
and the n>su'it has been an universal conviction that in holding Slaves we violate no
law of (Jod, — inflict no injustice on any of his creatures — while the terrible conse-
quences of eman(;ij)ation to all parties and the world at larg(% clearly revealed to us,
make us shudder at the bare thought of it The slave-holders are therefore indebted
to the Abolitionists for perfect ease of conscience, and the satisfaction of a settled
and unanimous determination in reference to this matter. And could their agitation
cease now, I believe after all, the good would preponderate over the evil of it in
this country. On the contrary, however, it is urged on with frantic violence, and
the Abolitionist-s, reasoning in the abstract, as if it were a mere moral and metaphy-
sical speculation, or a minor question in politics, professed to be surpri-sed at our ex-
asperation. In their ignorance and recklessness, they seem to be unable to compre-
hend our feelings or position. The subversion of our rights, the destruction of our

Gov. JIammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 31

property, the disturbance of our peace and tlie peace of the world, are matters which
do not appear to arrest their considLM'ation. VVIumi R !VoUitionary France pro-
claimed "Hatred to Kin^^aud unity to the Republic," and inscribed -ju her banners,
"France risen a<;;ainst Tyrants," she professed to be only worshipping "Abstract
Ri<>-hls." And ii' there can be such things, perhaps she was. Yet all Europe rose
to put her sublime theories down. They declared her an enemy to the comiuon'peace;
that her doctrines alone violated the "Law of Neighborhood," and, as Mr. Burke
said, justly entiiled them to anticipate the "damnum nondum fiictum" of the civil
law. Danton, Barreke, and the rest were apparently astonished that umbrage
should be taken. The parallel between them and the Abolitionists holds good in all
respects.

The rise and progress ofthi- Fanaticism is one ofthe phenomena of the age in which
we live, I do not intend to repeat what I have already said, or to trace is career
more minutely at present. But the Legislation of Great Britain will make it his-
torical, and doubtless you must feel some curiosity to know how it will figure on the
page ofthe Annalist. I think I can tell you. Though I have accorded and do ac-
cord to you and your party great influence in bringing about the Parliamentary action
of your country, you must not expect to go down to posterity as the only cause of it.
Though you trace the progenitors of Abolition from 1516 through a long stream
with divers branches^ iwn to the period of its triumph in your country, it has not
escaped contemporaries, and will not escape posterity, that England, without much
efibrt sustaijied the storufof its scofts and threats until the moment arrived when she
thought her colonies fully supplied with Africans; and declared again# the Slave
Trade only when she deemed it unnecessary to her, and when her colonies full of
Slaves would have great advantages over others not so well furnished. Nor did she
agree to West India emancipation until, discovering the error of her previous calcu-
lation, it became an object to have slaves ("fee throughout the Western world, and, on
the ruin ofthe Sugar and Cotton growers of« America and the Islands, to build up her
great Slave Empire in the East. While her indefatigable exertions, still continued
to engraft the Right of Search upon the Law of Nations, on the plea of putting an
end to the forevcM- increasiiig Slave Trade, are well understood to have chiefly in
view the complete establishment of her supremacy at Sea. On these points let me
recommend you to consult a very able Essay ^on the Slave Trade and Right of Search
by M. JoLLivET, recently published; and as you say, since writing your Circular
Letter, that you "burn to try your hand on another little Essay, if a subject could be
found," I propose you to "try" to answer this question, put by M. Jollivet to Eng.
land: ^'■Ponrquoi sa philanfhropie «'d pas daigiie, jtisqu'' a presen' dovbler le cap de
Bonne -JBsp^ra nee r^ Nor must you flatter yourself that your party will derive historic
dignity from the names of the illustrious British statesinen who have acted with it.
Their country's ends were theirs. They have stooped to use you, as the most illus-
trious men will sometiines use the vilest instruments, to accomplish their own pui po-
ses. A tew philanthropic common places and rhetorical flourishes, "in the abstract,"
have secured them your "sweet voices," and your influence over the tribe of mawkish
sentimentalists. Wilberforce may hr^ve been yours, but what was he besi.'es, but
a wealthy county member? You must therefore expect to stand on your own merits
alone before posterity, or rather that portion of it that maybe curious to trace the
history of the Delusion which from time to time pass over the surface of human afliiirs,
and who may trouble themselves to look through the ramifications of Transcenden-
talism in this era of extravagances And how do you expect to appear in their eyes?
As Christians piously endeavoring to enforce the will of (Jod and carry out the prin-
ciples of Christianity? Certainly not, since you deny or perveitthe Scriptures in the
doctrines you advance; and in your conduct furnish a glaring contrast to the exam-
ples of Christ and the .\postles. As Philanthro])ists, devoting yourselves to the cause
of humanity, relieving the needy, comforting the afflicted, creating peace and glad-
ness and plenty round about you? Certainly not; since you turn from the needy and
the afflicted; from strife, sorrow and starvation which surrounds you; close your eyes
and hands upon them; shut out from your thoughts and feelings the hmiian misery which
is real, tangible, and within your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in conjuring

32 G^v. IliuninjiuVs LvUers on Soiitlicrn Slavcnj.

up woes and wants among a strange |)PO|)le in distant lands, and offbr them succor in
tilt' sliape of costless donunciations of their best tricnis, or by scattering among them
''firebrands, arrov/s and death." Such folly and m idnes^; such wild mockery and
])ase imposhirt>, can never w'in fijr you, in the sober judgment of future times, the
name ori'fiilanthropists. Will you even lie regarded as worthy citizens? Scarcely,
when the purposes you have in view can only bo achieved by revolutionizing go-
vernment< and overturning social systems, and when you do not hestate zeahjusly
and earnestly to recommend such measures. Bo assured then, that posterity will not
reijard the Abolitionists as Christians, Philanthropists, or virtuous citizens. It will,
I have no doubt, look upon the mass of the pirty as silly enthusiasts, led away by de-
siofnin" characters, as is the case with all parlies that break from the great, acknow-
led'^ed ties, which bind civilized man in fellowship. The leaders themselves will be
regarded as jnrre ambit iou<i men; not taking rank with those whose ambition is "eagle-
win<Ted and sky aspiring," but belonging to that mean and selfish class who are in-
stigated by '"rivabhating envy," and whose base thirst is for Noloriety; who cloak
their designs under the vile and impious hypocrisies, and, unable to shine in higher
spheres, devote themselves to Fanaticism, as a trade. And it will be perceived that,
even in that, they shunned the highest walk. Religious Fanaticism was an old
established vocation, in which something brilliant was required to attract attention.
They could not be Gkorge Foxks, nor Jo.vxxa SouTiicoTKs,«nor even Jok Smiths.
But the dullest pretender could discourse a jumble of pious bigotry, natural rights and
drivelling philanthroj^y. And, addressing himself to aged folly and youthful vanity,
to ancient women, to ill-gotten wealth, to the reckless of all classes who love excite-
ment and change, offer all the cheapest and safest glory in the market. Hence,
their numbers; and, from number and clamour, \vhat iyipression they have made
on the world.

Such I am persuaded is the light in wdiich Abojitionists will be viewed by
the posterity their history may reach.* Unless, .indeed— which God forbid---cir-
cumstances should so favor as to enable them to produce a convulsion which
may elevate them higher on the 'djad eminence" where ^^hey have placed them-
selves. ^ •"
I have the honor to bo

Your obedient servant,

J. II. HAMMOND.

Thomas Clarksox, Esa.

pjoTE. Tlic foregoing Letters were not originally intended for publication. In preparing tlieni

for tlie press they have been revised Tlie alterations and corrections made however, liave been
mostly verbal. Had the writer felt at liberty to condense the two letters into one, and bring up the
history of Abolition to the period of publication, he might have presented a more concise and per-
fect argument, and illustrated liis views more forcibly by reference to facts recently developed.
For example, since writing the first, the letter of Mr. Cl.\rkson, as President of the British Anti-
Slavery Society, to Sir Robert Peel, denouncing the whole scheme of "Immigration," has reached
him; and after he had forwarded the last, he saw it stated that Mr. Clarkson had as late as the
first part of April, addressed the Earl of Abekuee.v, and declared that all efforts to suppress the
African Slave '^Ikade had fully failed. It may be confidently expected that it will be ere long an-
nounced from the same quarter, that the '-experiment" of West-India Emancipation has also
proved a complete abortion.

Should the terms which have been applied to the Abolitionists appear to any as unduly severe,
let it be remembered that the direct aim of these people is to destroy us by the most shocking of
all processes; and that, having a large portion of the civilized world for their audience, they daily
and systematically heap upon us the vilest calumnies and most unmitigated abuse. Clergymen
lay aside their Bibles, and Females uiisex themselves to carry on this horrid warfare against Slave-
holders.

Cji.iRLEsro.N— W.\LKER «So BuRKE, PRINTERS, 3 Broad-st.